


The Incandescence in the Reflection

by Rochelle_Templer



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Along with some offscreen and implied violence, Case Fic, Friendship, Gen, brief mentions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2018-12-18 05:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 48,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11867586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rochelle_Templer/pseuds/Rochelle_Templer
Summary: A series of murders has the team reflecting on the darker sides of human nature. Meanwhile, Sweets works through the aftermath of a disturbing case he worked on without the rest of the team.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place about a month or so after the events in the Season Six finale (The Change in the Game).

Even though he was driving to a crime scene, Special Agent Seeley Booth could not help but smile a little.

He had just spent the last week and a half on vacation with the first week having been spent in the Bahamas. He and Brennan decided to go there on an early sort of “babymoon” to reconnect as partners and explore even more their new relationship as lovers. After the week was over, Brennan returned to DC, and Booth spent the remainder of his vacation camping with Parker. All of this had been just what he needed after months of a grueling case load along with everyone still dealing with the aftermath of the Broadsky case.

Now he was driving out of DC and into one of the forested areas within Virginia to answer a call about a body that had been found in the woods. The Jeffersonian had already been called in, and Booth knew that he would be meeting Brennan, Cam and possibly Hodgins there.

As Booth parked his SUV along the edges of the yellow tape surrounding the scene, he consciously made sure to remove the smile from his features. He had told Brennan many times about how one should not smile too much at crime scenes, and he figured that he had better get into the right mindset for whatever was waiting for him anyway.

As he walked around, he saw the FBI techs milling around and gathering evidence. He soon found the local sheriff who had called in the FBI and got the initial details from him. Apparently a pair of hikers had found the body in this secluded area off the main trail. They freaked out and ran to a park ranger station where the local police was called. Upon seeing the condition of the body, the sheriff decided to call in the FBI.

“We just don’t have the facilities to investigate something like this,” the sheriff said. “Hopefully you guys can figure something out from this. I should warn you though, the body…it’s pretty messed up.”

Once he was finished talking to the sheriff and the hikers, Booth walked over to find Brennan and Cam kneeling over a pile of flesh and bones which the agent could only assume used to belong to a human being.

“Booth,” Brennan smiled at him as he approached.

“How was vacation, big man?” Cam asked him with a smile of her own.’

“Vacation was great,” Booth said. “The Bahamas were great and so was camping with Parker. He said that he can’t wait to do it again next year.”

“Actually, the Bahamas were more than just great,” Brennan said with a mischievous look in her eye. “There was this one night when we were walking along the beach, and when we discovered how secluded it was we….”

“Had a lot of fun, but Cam doesn’t need to know about that, ok Bones?” Booth interrupted hastily. “So what do we got here?”

“Judging from the pelvic bones, I would say female,” Brennan said, looking back down. “Late teens, early twenties.”

“Hard to say how long it’s been here just based on visual inspection of the decomp,” Cam said. “Looks like the insects and scavengers went to work on this one quickly. We’ll know more once we get it back to the lab, and Hodgins looks over the insect activity. But if I had to guess, I’d say the body has been here no less than three days, but no more than two weeks.”

“Anything else you can tell me?” Booth asked. “Like whether or not it was murder?”

“It’s difficult to say with complete certainty at this point,” Brennan answered. “But there are indications that this could have been murder.”

“These wounds here on the torso,” Cam said as she pointed to one of the larger lumps of flesh. “They are too shallow to be cause of death, but would have been painful. Plus, I found what looks like burn marks on her upper arms.”

“We will be able to give you more once we get the remains back to the lab,” Brennan said.

“Right,” Booth said. “I’m going to go talk again to the hikers who found the body and then I’m going to meet you back at the lab.”

“Bye Booth,” Brennan said as she stared down at the remains. Booth shook his head a little as he walked away. His gut was telling him that this case was going to be a bad one. He wished that this was just some kind of jitters from having just been on vacation.

But Booth knew that his instincts were rarely wrong in things like this.

* * *

 

A couple hours later, Booth walked into the Medico-Legal lab. The additional conversation with the hikers turned up little else that was useful, so the agent ended up heading back to his office to start the paperwork for the case and to catch up on some additional correspondence that had stacked up while he was gone. Brennan had not declared murder yet, but Booth was certain that she would, and thus, decided to get a jump on things while he waited for results from her team. After accomplishing everything he could at this juncture, Booth decided to head over to the Jeffersonian to see if anyone had more for him to work with.

Booth walked toward the forensic platform to see Cam, Brennan, Hodgins, and Arastoo all gathered around the remains which were lying on one of the examination tables.”

“Find out anything?” he asked as he slid his ID card through one of the security monitors.

“Angela is running the victim’s dentals now,” Cam answered.

“Based on the larvae and eggs I have found so far on the body, I’d say she was out there no more than five days,” Hodgins said. “I’ll be able to give you an even more exact date once I finish analyzing my samples.”

“Five days, but no scraps of clothes left on the body,” Booth commented. “Are we looking at some kind of sexual assault?”

“Too early to tell,” the pathologist answered.  “I can tell you that the cuts on the torso were not made at the same time as the burns on the arms, but they did occur within a short span of time of each other. And they were not cause of death.”

“So what is cause of death?” Booth asked.

“What are your thoughts, Mr. Vaziri?” Brennan asked.

“The hyoid bone suffered multiple fractures,” the intern responded. “She was strangled and given the extent of the damage, it was what killed her.”

“I concur,” Brennan nodded. Just then Angela appeared with a pair of files in her hands.

“Dentals came back with a hit from the missing persons database,” she said. The artist handed one file to Cam and then went over the one of the monitors, her fingers dancing along the keyboard. Seconds later, a picture of a young, blond woman appeared on the screen.

“Amy Whitmore,” Angela said. “Twenty-one years old and a college student. Reported missing by her parents a little over a month ago.”

“A month?” Booth said. “But according to all of you, she died less than a week ago.”

“Meaning she was probably held somewhere first,” Brennan said. “In a place that resulted in all of the non-fatal injuries she sustained.”

“Torture,” Arastoo breathed.

Everyone became quiet for a moment while looking at each other. It wasn’t the first time they had investigated a crime with such brutal indications, but that never seemed to make things any easier to investigate.

Booth kept staring at the photo of the victim on the screen. The girl was smiling, as they often were in these pictures, and he felt his heart drop slightly in an all too familiar way.

“Do you have a copy of the file for me, Angela?” Booth asked. The artist handed him the other file she had been holding and started to leave the platform.

“All yours,” she sighed. “I’ll be in my office if you guys need anything else.”

“Thanks Angela,” Brennan said. “I might need you run some scenarios over the injury patterns later.”

“I’m leaving too,” Booth said. “I’ve got to inform Amy’s parents about their daughter.”

“Did you want me to come with you?” Brennan asked.

“No, I’ve got this,” the agent said as he went back down the stairs. “You and your squints just…see what else you can figure out so we can catch this guy as soon as possible. We need to stop him.”

“Because of the vicious nature of what he did,” the anthropologist nodded.

“That…and because someone who does something like this…They’re not going to stop with just one victim,” Booth said. “They’ll keep doing it until somebody stops them.”

* * *

 

Almost four hours later, Booth leaned back in his chair in his office and contemplated the information he had gathered thus far.

The Whitmores had just left about a half an hour ago. They had already guessed why Booth had called them there, but nothing had been able to prepare them for the moment when every last hope had been shattered by Booth’s confirmation of their daughter’s death. After allowing them a couple minutes to grieve, the agent started with the usual questions: who did their daughter hang out with? was she having problems at college? any enemies? any boyfriends or boys who thought they were her boyfriend?

The usual lines of inquiry came up dry until Booth brought up the subject of boys. There had been one boy: Thomas Lucke. He had dated Amy for about a year, and her parents had not liked him from day one.

* * *

 

_“Amy said that he was exciting and unconventional,” Mrs. Whitmore had scoffed. “That was her way of covering up for the fact that he had dropped out of college and couldn’t hold a job, let alone lead any sort of normal life.”_

_“But that is…was our Amy, Agent Booth,” Mr. Whitmore said as he took his wife’s hand into his. “She always tried to see the good in people, even if there wasn’t much good to be found.”_

_“Were there problems in the relationship?” Booth asked._

_“I always suspected that he hit her,” the mother added. “But Amy would never speak ill of him. When she finally did end things with him, he kept calling her, wanting another chance and telling her that he could never leave her.”_

_“Agent Booth, please,” Mr. Whitmore said. “Please find out who did this to our daughter. To our Amy. And…and if it was this boy who hurt her, please make sure that….”_

_“Mr. and Mrs Whitmore, I promise you that we will find out who did this to Amy,” Booth said. “And I will make sure that they pay for what they did.”_

* * *

 

Following up on the parents’ comments, Booth had his agents pull up whatever information they could on Lucke. A short time later, his assistant dropped off a file which Booth immediately scanned through.

‘ _Looks like Lucke has quite the record,’_ the agent thought grimly. ‘ _Vandalism, petty theft, and even assault charges.’_

As he read through the reports, Booth felt even more confident that they had a viable suspect in Lucke and started to make plans to have him brought in tomorrow for questioning.

Moments later, he had gotten an email from Cam, giving him the latest reports from the lab. There wasn’t much in the way of new information other than confirmation that Amy had suffered from numerous non-fatal injuries in the weeks leading up to her death, all of which dated from the time period she was missing.

Booth looked again at Lucke’s file and took a long sip of his coffee.

‘ _This guy might be a criminal, but I don’t know if he’s really the type for something like this,’_ he mused. _‘Nothing in his file shows a tendency for something like torture and murder.’_

The agent took another large swallow of coffee so he could finish what was in his mug and got up from his chair. It suddenly occurred to him who he should start talking to at this stage of the investigation.

Booth gathered up the files he had and made copies of them along with the notes he had thus far. After telling his assistant to track down Lucke’s parole officer and making arrangements to have him picked up, Booth headed off toward Sweets’ office.

By this time it was late evening, but he suspected that Sweets would still be around. Over the past three years of working with him, Booth had noted that Sweets tended to work the same kind of long hours that he did. He hoped to not only get a profile out of the psychologist, but to also get some help in the interrogation with Lucke tomorrow.

As he approached the office, Booth saw that Sweets’ secretary, Becky, was already gone for the day, but that the light was still on inside the office proper. As he had predicted,  he could make out Sweets’ silhouette sitting at his desk. Seeing the shadow of only one person inside, Booth figured it was fair game to just walk right in…not that the presence of someone else in there was enough to deter him in the past.

“Hey Sweets,” Booth said as he opened the door and walked into the office. “We’ve got another case and this one has got a real sicko behind it. Someone who enjoys holding women hostage and torturing them. I’ve got a possible suspect here and I need you to work your shrinky mojo on his file to see if he’s the type of person who could do something like this.”

Sweets had been facing away from the agent at his desk when he walked in. The therapist slowly swiveled his chair toward him, and once Booth looked up from his file to look at Sweets, the case was immediately forgotten.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a sharp intake of breath from Booth as he got a good look at Sweets. The psychologist had an ugly black eye, which from the looks of it, had just opened up recently so he could see out of it. Also Sweets was wearing a brace on his left wrist that extended up his forearm. From the way that he held his side as he turned, Booth was certain that at least a couple of Sweets’ ribs were broken, or at the very least cracked.

Booth took a couple more steps forward and let the files that were dangling in his hands fall into a heap onto the coffee table. The agent then quickened his pace until he was standing over an embarrassed-looking Sweets. He could not help but feel some irrational guilt over the fact that he had not been here to prevent this from happening to the therapist. But that feeling was soon replaced with anger; anger that someone thought that they could get away with hurting Sweets.

“What happened?” Booth nearly growled at him. Sweets sighed and looked away.

“Nothing,” Sweets mumbled. “It was during a ca—it’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” Booth said, his agitation growing. “Did you say that all this happened during a case?”

“Agent Booth, I….”

“No Sweets, I want to know what happened,” the agent demanded. “Who did this to you? And if it was during the course of an investigation, why did the agent who was working with you let it happen? Unless…unless he was the one who did it. Are you telling me that someone from the Bureau did this to you?”

With each question, Booth felt his rage increase. No one got to hurt any of his people, and members of the Bureau were not exempt from this. Seeing the still fresh bruise on Sweets’ face along the way that the therapist winced when he moved only fueled the agent’s anger. It was taking an enormous amount of self-control on Booth’s part to not storm out of the office and begin tracking down whoever was responsible for this.

Movement from Sweets broke Booth’s train of thought. The psychologist got up gingerly from his office chair and made his way over to the chair he normally used for therapy sessions. Booth carefully took one of Sweets’ arms and helped to guide him over before Sweets sat down. The agent then sat down on the couch across from him and leaned toward him, waiting for an answer to his questions.

“Age—Booth, no one here at the FBI did this to me,” Sweets answered. “There was this case and…it was complicated. Please, I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Booth frowned while the two of them stared at each other. Despite his slight frame and his quiet, friendly, and frequently goofy demeanor, the agent knew that Sweets had a surprisingly strong will. If the psychologist did not want to open the door on some part of his life, there was no way to pry things out of him.

Booth sighed inwardly. There was no way that he could let this go and not find out what happened at some point, but he figured that now would probably not be the best time to get into this. Besides there was still a case to consider.

“All right, you want to work?” Booth said after taking a deep breath. “Like I was saying when I came in, we got this case now. Real perverted kind of stuff.” Sweets nodded and Booth started to hand him the files.

“Amy Whitmore, twenty-one years old,” Booth continued as Sweets flipped through the files. “Bones and her squints say that she was probably held captive and tortured before she was strangled.”

“Do you think that whoever did this has killed before?” Sweets asked.

“I’m thinking that even if he hasn’t done it before, this guy enjoys this kind of thing,” Booth replied. “I’ve also got a file here on a possible suspect, the victim’s ex-boyfriend, for you to look over. I’m having him brought in tomorrow, and I was hoping you could tell me if he’s the type by then. At the very least, give me an idea of what approach to take with this guy.”

“Ok,” Sweets said, still scanning the files. “I can start building a profile for you from this murder and see if your suspect fits within its parameters.”

“Right, and I was hoping that you would join me when I interrogate him,” the agent added.

“Sure,” the psychologist nodded without looking up. Booth noticed that Sweets’ hands shook slightly while he was staring at the photographs of the body at the crime scene, and he immediately became concerned again.

“Sweets…if you are busy, with patients and all, you can skip the interrogation,” Booth said quietly. “I can talk to this guy on my own while you work on the profile.”

“No,” Sweets insisted. “I mean…it’s fine. I only have a couple of patients to see tomorrow.”

The psychologist slowly stood up and gathered all the files and paperwork into a neat pile and carried it to his desk.

“I’ll just get to work on all this tonight,” Sweets said. “That way when I meet you tomorrow, I can go over my preliminary profile with you before we talk to him.” Sweets sat the files down next to another even larger stack of files that were sitting next to his computer. Booth was sure that those other files were all cases that Sweets needed to profile and even patients’ files that he needed to go over.

“Hey Sweets, maybe you should sit this one out,” Booth said cautiously. “Perhaps you could just work up a profile for me and then I’ll just….”

The agent stopped as Sweets whirled back toward him, wincing again as he did so. Booth could see that his words had the immediate effect of causing Sweets’ shoulders to slump and his eyes to dim. Considering the psychologist’s already forlorn appearance, it was not a sight that Booth enjoyed seeing in the slightest.

“I understand,” Sweets said, swallowing hard. “If you would rather work with someone else…I can transfer the files over to another Bureau psychologist after I finish with the profile here tonight, and they could….”

“Look, I only want to do that if you’re not available,” Booth backpedaled. “I just thought that maybe you were too busy for this case right now. But if you have the time for this, I would prefer to work with you. I have a bad feeling about this one, and I could use your help on it.”  

“It’s no problem,” Sweets said as he settled back into his office chair. “I’ll meet you at your office tomorrow and give you my initial findings then.”

Booth stood up and turned to walk out of the office. His hand touched the doorknob when the sound of Sweets clearing his throat stopped him.

“Booth…how was your vacation?” Sweets asked. “Did you and Doctor Brennan have a good time?” The agent grimaced at the question.

‘ _We probably had a much better time than you’ve had recently,’_ Booth told himself, feeling oddly guilty again.

“It was great,” Booth answered, still facing the door. “Bones and I…we had a lot of fun. And Parker had a blast too. He’s already asking when we’ll go camping next year.”

“That’s good,” Sweets said, his tone wistful. Booth turned back toward him.

“Hey Sweets, why don’t you take a break with me?” he said. “I’m going to go meet Bones for a bite to eat. You can get back to this in an hour or two. Hey, I’ll even buy. How does that sound?”

“Thank you,” Sweets said with a trace of a smile. “But I have a lot of work here to do. Maybe some other time?”

“All right, next time then,” Booth said as he opened the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.” Sweets nodded and turned back toward his computer as the agent walked out and shut the door behind him.

* * *

 

Once he was in the hallway, Booth began to scowl, and the scowl did not leave his face even after he collected his suit jacket and turned off the lights in his office and made his way to the parking lot. He was frustrated with Sweets for not telling him what happened, but he was also concerned that the psychologist was running himself into the ground with work. Plus, he still could not shake the persistent guilt that he should have prevented this somehow.

But soon he found himself annoyed that he had not found out about Sweets’ injuries sooner.

‘ _That bruise still looks fresh,’_ he thought. ‘ _Not more than three days old. Bones was already back in DC by then. And everyone else, Cam, Hodgins, and Angela…they were here this whole time. Why didn’t any of them mention this to me?’_

Booth got into his SUV and slammed the door with a little more force than what was necessary to shut it. He could picture one or two of them being persuaded by Sweets to keep quiet about the incident, but not all of them. At least not for very long anyway. Despite all of their scientific acumen and their analytical skills, the squints were horrible at keeping things a secret, especially from Booth.

Finding himself with more questions than answers, the agent turned the key in the ignition and drove off toward the lab. He hoped that talking to Brennan could alleviate his concerns about this case, about Sweets and about the nagging sense that he had picked the wrong time to go on vacation.

* * *

 

Back in his office, Sweets finished glancing through all the material that Booth had given him and had laid his head down onto his forearms on the desk.

He hadn’t been surprised that Booth not only noticed his injuries, but had demanded to know where he had gotten them. The therapist had once mentioned that Booth had ‘white knight’ syndrome in his ill-fated attempt at a book about Booth’s and Brennan’s partnership. But over the last year or so, Sweets had come to agree more with a description that Brennan had mentioned Cullen giving Booth a few years ago.

‘ _Booth is not a blind white knight,’_ he mused. ‘ _He truly is a paladin. Someone who is a hero and a champion for those he feels the need to defend.’_

Sweets clenched his hands tightly. A part of him was uncomfortable with the idea that Booth felt the need to protect him.

 _‘Probably because he thinks that I can’t take care of myself,’_ the therapist thought bitterly. ‘ _And if anything, this last case proved that to be true.’_

_‘Come on, Doctor Sweets. Where are those profiles that I asked for?’_

_‘Where do you think you’re going? You still have work to do. You can go home later.’_

_‘Your best is not good enough. Not when there are still kids out there dying.’_

Sweets shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind and stood back up. He then walked out of his office so he could get some coffee and perhaps something from the vending machine. For the past two days since returning to work, Sweets had tried to stay in his office as much as possible. He didn’t care for the looks that he got from many of his co-workers, and he liked the faint whispers that he could detect as he walked by even less. Pity, morbid curiosity, slight concern, irritation and even outright contempt….he had seen it all in the faces of the people he worked with at the Hoover building, and all of it made him want to retreat into his office and stay there as long as he was able to.

Sweets poured himself a generous amount of coffee and sipped at it while he surveyed the offerings from the vending machine nearest to the coffee maker. Truth be told, he wasn’t really that hungry due to his stomach starting to churn for what seemed like the hundredth time in this past week. He was more interested in simply staying awake so that he could work longer and avoid going home. Going home meant that he would eventually cave in and try to get the sleep his body was craving, and sleeping held little more than horrific nightmares for him these days.

The therapist pulled out some change from his pocket. He decided on one of his favorite candy bars and watched it tumble downward as the machine released it to the slot. Sweets sat his mug down and swiftly bent down to snatch it up which prompted a hiss of pain courtesy of his still battered ribs. He then refilled his mug and opened up the wrapper so that he could eat his chocolate bar on the way back to his office. It was a good way to distract himself during the short trip back so that he wouldn’t have to think about any reaction his presence might generate from the rest of the staff.

By the time he got back, he had finished with his snack and threw the empty wrapper into the wastebasket that sat next to Becky’s desk before going into his own office. He then sat his mug down on his desk and sat back down to look over the files from Booth’s latest case even more carefully. He arranged the files in front of him and took out a yellow legal pad and a pen so that he could take notes as he read.

While he was reading each file more thoroughly, his eyes would occasionally glance over at the crime scene photos and at the photos from the Medico-Legal lab. Soon he picked each one up and studied it, trying to discern as many clues and details as possible to help him gain better insight into the type of killer they were up against.

As he stared at these pictures, however, memories of other pictures and other crime scenes kept creeping back into his brain and soon started to flood his mind.

‘ _A photo of the remains of a little boy who had been killed, wrapped in plastic and thrown into a dumpster.’_

_‘An evidence bag which held the scraps of backpack along with one that contained a tattered baseball cap. Both of which had accompanied the body of a boy who had been found stuffed under a backyard porch.’_

_An unmistakable smell of putrefaction as Sweets stood over the corpse of another boy who had been hastily buried at the edge of a local cemetery and who had been found by the groundskeeper.’_

Sweets looked up from the photographs in front of him and grabbed his mug, taking a giant slurp from his coffee. Once he was done, he sat it back down with a shaky hand and worked again to clear his mind.

‘ _No…I can’t think about that case or…him, right now,’_ he told himself. ‘ _I need to focus. Booth needs me to help him solve this murder. I have to get into the right mindset so that I can help him catch this murderer.’_

_‘I have to…before he kills again…because Booth is right in thinking that he will kill again.’_

Sweets closed his eyes for a few seconds. Once he reopened them, he straightened himself upright in his chair and opened up the next file so he could continue.

As he did so, however, he suddenly remembered that Daisy had mentioned the two of them possibly grabbing some dinner in about an hour. Sighing, Sweets pulled out his cell phone and called her to cancel yet another meal with her. He hated doing it, worried that she would run out of patience with him, but he could not see any alternative and decided to hope that she would understand.

After all, Sweets was fairly certain that he would need to spend several more hours at work….and his predictions about things like this were rarely wrong these days.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Bones, are you telling me that you had no idea that Sweets had gotten hurt?” Booth asked.

Brennan sat across from him at the Royal Diner with a bowl of soup and had just finished her latest spoonful when Booth asked this question. She sat her spoon down and shook her head.

“When I got back from the Bahamas, I discovered that the lab had been sent three sets of skeletal remains from a construction site in Denver,” she said. “The workers at the site were convinced that there were from Native American tribe who had migrated through that area back in the late 16th century. Although after examining them, I have another theory that there were actually from a lost tribe who….”

“So you’re saying that you didn’t see or talk to Sweets during that time?” Booth interrupted.

“No, I was busy with these remains,” Brennan said, shifting slightly in her chair. “I do want you to know, however, that I made sure to be more vigilant about getting adequate rest, food and exercise while I was working to ensure the health of our fetus. Still, I was engrossed in my work while you were camping with Parker.”

“Don’t say fetus,” Booth said, wrinkling his nose before taking another bite of his cheeseburger. “That’s our baby, our child, growing inside of you.”

“Fetus is the clinical term for a human infant who has not yet exited the womb,” Brennan replied. “Although at this stage of development, the term ‘embryo’ would actually be more accurate.”

“No Bones,” the agent said, placing one of his hands over hers. “Not embryo, not fetus…baby. Our baby.” Booth stared into her eyes. The tender look he gave her soon generated a smile from Brennan and she gripped at his hand.

“Baby,” she said. “I suppose, semantically speaking, it does have a different and more pleasant connotation to it.” Booth grinned back at her before finally letting go of her hand.

“What about Hodgins or Angela?” Booth asked. “Didn’t either of them run into Sweets at all this last week?”

“Both of them are busy with work in the lab and with Michael,” she answered. “Parenthood seems to suit them, but I suspect that they are both suffering from sleep deprivation and over-stimulation of the auditory nerves.”

“So basically Michael has been keeping them up at night and is probably colicky,” Booth grinned again. “That’ll happen. You might want to prepare yourself for it while you can.”

“If you were wondering about Cam, she has been given a lot of administrative work of late,” Brennan continued. “There was a documentary that was being filmed recently about the Jeffersonian and apparently there are those who felt that Doctor Saroyan puts forth a good ‘face’ for the Medico-Legal lab.”

“Which she does,” he nodded. “Besides, you never did care for the whole publicity thing, even when you had to do it for your books.”

“That’s true,” she said thoughtfully before scooping up some more soup. “Perhaps it’s just as well that they wasted Cam’s time.”

“Look, I get that you were all busy,” Booth sighed. “It’s just….”

“What is it, Booth?”

“It just kind of worries me, you know?” he replied. “No one saw Sweets for over a week. No one knew what was going on with him. No one even saw him for lunch or for a drink. He’s probably been working too many hours, and no one has been checking up on him to see if he was ok.”

“Doctor Sweets is a grown man,” Brennan said. “He doesn’t need to be looked after like a child. Besides, what about Miss Wick? She and Sweets seem to be in a committed relationship, and while it is true that they are not currently living together, I’d imagine that she would be aware of any problems that Doctor Sweets might be having.”

“Yeah, well not necessarily Bones,” Booth huffed before jamming a French fry into his mouth.

“No, for all her faults, Daisy is very observant,” she said. “Injuries like the ones you described Sweets as having would not go unnoticed by her.”

“Look, you’re right that Daisy is observant when it comes to things like bones or stuff that can be seen with just the eyes,” Booth responded. “But the fact is that, like you, she tends to get caught up in her work. Plus, she sometimes doesn’t get the whole picture of what is going on with people. Sweets…he’s a whole picture kind of a guy. Besides, I know Sweets. Even if Daisy did ask about what happened to him, he probably just told her the bare minimum that he wanted her to know, and she was satisfied with that and didn’t pursue it.”

Booth then reached for her hand again and held it tightly.

“You’re right,” he said. “Sweets is not a child, even if he does look like he’s about twelve. I know that he is an adult, but that’s not the point here. The point is that Sweets is a part of our team, our family. And family makes sure that everyone is in a good place and helps out if they are not.”

“But you acted as if Doctor Sweets doesn’t want to talk about what happened to him,” Brennan said. “If that is his wish, shouldn’t we respect his wishes and not pry?”

“Sometimes it’s not that simple, Bones,” Booth said. “Sometimes, when someone close to you is hurting, you have to take action even if they don’t ask for it because for some people, asking for help is one of the hardest things for them to do.”

The agent lifted her hand closer to him and enveloped it into both of his.

“Our family is growing,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that we should leave anyone behind in the process.” Brennan’s eyes immediately grew moist at his words.

“Is that what we were doing?” she asked, worry bleeding into her voice. “Does Sweets think that we don’t care about him anymore? Does he…does he not want to be a part of our family anymore?”

“No, no Bones,” Booth reassured her. “I’m sure that Sweets still wants to be a part of our family. And you know what; some of this is probably because, just like you, he gets caught up in his work. I’m just saying that we all need to be careful and make sure that we have each other’s backs. That’s all.”

Booth let go of her hand and the two of them went back to eating their meal.

“Look, I’m going to find out what happened, all right?” he said. “And when I do, I will let you know. You and everyone else just need to be ready when Sweets finally asks for the help he’s going to need.”

* * *

 

The next morning, Booth went to his office with a mug of coffee in his hand and went over all of his notes and files for the case including everything that had arrived that day from the Medico-Legal lab. Not much more had been discovered other than both Cam and Brennan mentioning that the murderer was more than likely a strong person who used brute strength to abduct their victim.

“Good morning Agent Booth.”

Booth looked up from his desk to see Sweets standing in the doorway, a report in his hand. Despite the fact that Sweets had changed suits and had more than likely freshened up at some point, Booth noted that Sweets did not look refreshed or rested at all from yesterday. It then occurred to the agent that the reason the bruise around Sweets’ eye still looked so terrible was because the purple of the bruise was blending into the dark shadows that were forming under the psychologist’s eyes.

“Hey Sweets,” the agent nodded. “I’ve got a couple of agents picking up Lucke as we speak. They should be here in a few minutes. Is that the preliminary profile you’ve got there?”

“Yes,” Sweets said as he walked in. The therapist handed it to Booth before sitting down in a chair across from him.

“There was not a whole lot to go on,” Sweets added. “But as it is, I’d say that you are dealing with a more organized type of killer. Probably in some kind of white collar job. In fact, I’d be looking more toward someone with at least some college-level education.”

“Why do you say that?” Booth asked.

“From what I could see in Doctor Saroyan’s report and the crime scene photos, the injuries were precise and methodically delivered,” Sweets replied. “This does not seem like a frenzied attack from someone who is overcome with a hurried need to kill. Plus, everything from the way the victim was held for a long period of time to the way that the body was dumped indicates that we are dealing with someone who is careful and who plans ahead. I can’t really give you much more than that and what is in my report.”

“Good work, Sweets,” Booth said before taking another sip of coffee while the therapist beamed in response. The agent enjoyed seeing him smile and as a result he felt a little guilty about his next question.

“So how long did you end up staying here last night to get all of this done?” Booth asked. Sweets’ face immediately fell.

“Not that long,” Sweets lied. “Why?”

“I was just curious is all,” Booth said cagily. “I thought that maybe what with your ribs, your wrist and all that you would need to get as much rest as possible.”

“I’m fine,” Sweets insisted. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Sweets, you have a black eye, a fractured wrist and from the look of it at least four or five broken ribs,” Booth said. “Trust me, that is bad enough.”

“My ribs are not broken,” the psychologist replied. “They are just cracked is all. And it’s only three of them.”

“Only three? You say that like it’s an everyday kind of thing,” Booth said, incredulous. “And I’m right about the wrist, aren’t I? Because I am sure I could bring Bones in and she would back me up on this.”

“Agent Booth,” Sweets sighed. “I…I’ll admit that I am still somewhat sore from all of this, but honestly, it doesn’t hurt as much as it did before…not that it was ever that bad in the first place.”

“Don’t try to con me, Sweets,” Booth frowned. “If you got all that at the same time, which I am pretty sure you did, it would have been painful, no matter what you say. And besides, you don’t want to know what you sound like right now.”

“And what is that exactly?” Sweets bristled, his eyes narrowing. Booth met that glare with one of his own while he considered his response.

“Agent Booth?”

Both Booth and Sweets looked over toward the doorway to see Booth’s assistant, Charlie, standing there.

“They’ve just brought in Thomas Lucke,” Charlie said. “They’re placing him in one of the interrogation rooms.”

“Thanks Charlie,” the agent said. The assistant nodded and walked away. Booth then turned his gaze back onto Sweets.

“Anything you can give me on this guy?” he asked the psychologist.

“Well he seems to be insecure,” Sweets said. “Needs to feel powerful and in control, judging from his record. If he is in a situation where he thinks that he won’t be able to control the outcome, it could rattle him.”

“You up for an interrogation?” Booth asked as he stood up.

“Sure,” Sweets said, rising from his chair. Booth then gathered up his files from his desk while Sweets waited for him. Once he was done, they gave each other one last hard glance which both of them understood to mean one thing.

This conversation was far from over.

* * *

 

“Why am I here, exactly?” Lucke said as he rolled his eyes and slumped in his chair. Booth dumped the files down onto the table while Sweets settled into the chair beside him.

“We need to ask you some questions about your relationship with Amy Whitmore,” the agent said as he sat down.

“Is that what this is about?” Lucke said indignant. “Your guys drag me away from my job for this? Let me guess; Amy’s parents sent you, didn’t they?”

“Why would they do that?” Sweets asked blandly.

“Because they don’t like me, ok?” Lucke snapped back at him. He crossed his arms over his chest for a moment before running a hand through his slicked back hair.

“Her parents are those real suburbia types,” Lucke continued. “Nice house with a white fence, office jobs and staid little lifestyles. They didn’t want someone like me ‘corrupting’ their little girl.”

“Or maybe they just didn’t want you to ruin Amy’s life the way you were ruining yours,” Booth added.

“What do you mean ruin?” Lucke scoffed. “Just because I had a few minor disagreements with the law?”

“Breaking a man’s nose and threatening to kill him is not a minor disagreement,” Sweets said, gesturing toward the files on the table. “These kinds of actions indicate deep psychological issues which will only worsen if not addressed and can lead to an escalation into more serious crimes.”

“Cheery,” Lucke frowned. “You’re a shrink, aren’t you? Are you always like this with your patients? I’ll bet that’s how you got that shiner.”

“How about we stay on track?” Booth said, opening up Lucke’s file. “It says here that you have numerous assault charges, including the one Doctor Sweets just mentioned. My thinking is that maybe Amy started to listen to her parents. Maybe she started saying ‘no’ to you a little more often. And maybe she even decided that it was time to move on from you.”

“Look, fed, that’s not how it is between Amy and me,” Lucke said, rolling his hazel eyes again. “You talk to her. She’ll tell you that we are working things out.”

“She’s dead,” Booth said.  Lucke quickly paled.

“What? Dead?” he sputtered. “That’s not possible. You’re lying.”

“Why would we lie about something like that?” Sweets asked.

“Because…because you’re trying to set me up or something,” Lucke said. “Amy’s parents would do anything to get me out of the way. They don’t understand how we feel about each other. She’s not dead. She can’t be….Prove to me that she’s dead. Show me the body or something. Otherwise, I’m not saying anything else.”

“These photos enough for you?” Booth said as he tossed a couple of the crime scene photos in front of Lucke. “Come on, you had to have known that something was wrong with her being missing for so long. Why don’t you tell us the truth?”

“Oh God,” Lucke whispered as he stared at the gruesome pictures. “You...you can’t keep me here against my will. I’ve got rights.”

“Well you can either talk to us or we can go have a talk with your parole officer,” Booth said. “How do you think he will respond when he hears how uncooperative you are?”

“I’m not being uncooperative,” Lucke spat. “Oh God…is that Amy in these pictures?”

“This happens to you a lot, doesn’t it Mr. Lucke?” Sweets said, leaning toward him. “People misunderstand your feelings and your reactions to what happens around you. That’s what Amy’s parents did, isn’t it? But Amy, she understood you, didn’t she? She understood what you go through. But then something changed. Something changed between you and suddenly she didn’t understand either. We just need to know what happened. What happened between you and Amy?”

Lucke glared at Sweets for a few seconds before leaping out of his chair and grabbing Sweets by the arms and yanking him out of his chair.

Booth reacted immediately. He jumped out of his chair and pulled Lucke away from Sweets, pinning his arms behind his back. He then slammed Lucke against the table top and snapped a pair of handcuffs around his wrists before shoving him back down into the chair.

Sweets stood and watched all this in a daze before turning and dashing out of the room without a word.

“Stay there,” Booth growled. “I am far from done with you.” He then followed the therapist out the door. Once he was in the hallway, he found Sweets leaning against a wall, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“Sweets, are you all right?” Booth asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Sweets gasped. “He just…startled me is all.”

“Startled you?”

“Agent Booth, did you need me to help you finish this interview?” Sweets asked. Now it was Booth’s turn to be startled, but the agent hid it as best he could.

“I’ve got this,” Booth said. “But I want to go over that profile and some other things from the case with you some more later.”

“Sure, no problem,” Sweets said as he edged away. “I’ll be in my office. Oh and um, as far as Lucke goes, I don’t think he’s our guy. Call it a hunch.” The psychologist then nearly sprinted off down the hallway as fast as his body would allow. Booth felt his worry increase, but chose to ignore it for now, knowing that he still needed to focus on the case instead.

* * *

 

Sweets soon made it back to his office and shut the door behind him. On the way in, he had heard his secretary, Becky, mention something about one of his appointments having to be pushed back about thirty minutes, but Sweets had barely been able to hear or acknowledge her in his almost compulsive need to get away from everyone.

The therapist sank down onto the floor next to the couch and closed his eyes in an effort to calm himself while working to regulate his breathing.

‘ _Let’s see how brave you really are, Doctor Sweets.’_

_‘Why don’t we play a game now? A simple one, really._

_‘Did you enjoy getting to know me, Doctor Sweets?’_

The psychologist shook his head slightly as the memories from a few days ago filled his brain.

‘ _No…no it’s over now,’_ he told himself. ‘ _Darren Algente is dead. He can’t hurt anyone anymore. The case is over. We have a new case now. Booth needs my help. I have to focus.’_

Sweets leaned against the couch and attempted to mediate so that he could clear his mind. He had work that needed to be done: reports to write, profiles to construct, and patients to see. This was not the time to dwell on the past.

After he had regained some of his composure, Sweets got up and sat down at his desk. The file for his next appointment with a patient was lying in front of him and he decided to go over that next, figuring that he might need every moment he could to prepare for his next therapy session.

Unfortunately, Sweets wasn’t able to completely rid himself of a nagging sense of apprehension and frustration even though he could not entirely understand where they had come from.


	4. Chapter 4

Later that evening, Booth was studying Whitmore’s file, trying desperately to rid himself of the nagging feeling that his investigation had hit a snag.

After Sweets had left the interrogation room, the agent continued to interrogate Lucke for another hour, often using the threat of an assault charge for what he did to Sweets as a method to extract information from him. But Booth soon started to have his doubts about the likelihood of Lucke being the murderer, especially when Lucke finally broke down and cried over Whitmore’s death. The final blow came when Lucke explained why he had no idea that Amy was in any trouble.

“ _When I was in prison a while ago, I started to think about how screwed up my life was and then when I thought that Amy was going to leave me…that was the last straw,”_ Lucke had told him. “ _So here recently, I arranged it with my parole officer so that I could spend some time in this treatment center that’s supposed to help people like me with anger management issues and all that. I was totally cut off from the outside world for the last three months. I’m sort of still in the program. You know, one day at a time and all that.”_

Booth checked on his alibi, and once he learned that it was solid, he let Lucke go with a warning not to leave town and to keep tabs with his parole officer. Still, the agent couldn’t help but feel a little dismayed at all of this.

‘ _Sweets was right. He’s not the guy,’_ he mused. ‘ _But still I think this guy got ripped off as far as curing him of his anger issues.’_

The agent then tried talking to Amy’s parents again to see if there was anything else they could tell him about their daughter’s life and the people she was around, but came up empty other than an offhand comment her father made about how he wondered if his daughter was keeping something from him.

_“I don’t know how else to describe it, Agent Booth…but every time we talked, it was like she was hoping that I wouldn’t touch on something that was bothering her. The thing is, I don’t think I ever stumbled onto whatever it was. I…I wish now that I had.”_

Booth called the lab again next, but was not able to find out too much more until Hodgins joined in on speakerphone.

“ _I took some samples of some material around the victim’s neck. It turns out that they are silk threads. From the look of them, I’d say that they are from a man’s necktie. I’ll try to narrow down the manufacturer.”_

“ _Tox screen only came up with a mix of sedatives,”_ Cam had added. “ _Most of them are over-the-counter types, but there is one that usually needs a prescription. I’ll send over the generic and brand names of it in case you find any suspects who have prescriptions or have family members with them.”_

Booth thanked them and headed out to the vending machine to grab a snack before diving into his notes and reports. After a mostly fruitless search, he decided that the only course of action left to him was to go out to the university that Whitmore attended and try to talk to anyone who knew her there.

It suddenly occurred to him that it would probably be a good idea to take Sweets with him for this trip, but that thought made him sigh. The psychologist had been as sharp as ever in figuring out that Lucke wasn’t a good suspect, and that didn’t really surprise Booth, but he was concerned about the way Sweets was acting of late.

At first he had chalked it up to being solely related to whatever happened during the case that Sweets worked on while he was on vacation, but then he started to ponder the psychologist’s behavior over this past year.

 _‘Sweets…he never said anything about that time while we were all away from DC,’_ he thought to himself. ‘ _Even when he wrote me, he didn’t mention much about what he was doing while we were gone. And then all the things that happened after that: the whole thing with Taffet, that case with the deaf girl….just how much did all of that affect him?’_

The agent sighed again and looked down at his desk. The events of the past year had affected all of them, and it had not been easy to get things back to a state that resembled the way things were before. Booth, however, was starting to wonder if Sweets had ever regained that sense of normalcy along with a feeling of being connected to the team.

Booth gave out a huff and stacked up his files into a pile. Even though he felt somewhat guilty that he could have missed something like this, he reminded himself that he had had a lot on his own plate this past year. It wasn’t going to do anyone any good if he only focused on his failures.

Booth stood up and walked out of his office. He was still determined to make solving this case a priority, but he also felt that is was time for him and everyone else on his team to take the time to be more proactive with Sweets.

Whether the psychologist wanted it that way or not.

* * *

 

Booth walked over toward the door to Sweets’ office and noticed that the therapist’s secretary, Becky, was at her desk. He smiled as he moved closer to her.

“Good evening, Becky,” he said. “Is he in?” The secretary smiled back.

“Yes he is, Agent Booth,” she answered. “And he’s done with patients for the day, so it’s no problem to go see him. Did you enjoy your vacation?”

“Yes, I did,” Booth replied. “Thank you.” Ever since Sweets had started working with him and Brennan, Becky had been the psychologist’s secretary, and as a result Booth had become friendly with her over time.

“Well let me just say that I am glad that you are back,” Becky continued. “Hopefully things will be better for Doctor Sweets now. I mean, I take it that you saw what happened to him?”

“Yes,” Booth said, his face grim. “Tell me, how was it around here while I was gone? Was he working with someone else in particular?” The secretary frowned and leaned forward in her chair while Booth pulled up one of his own closer to her desk and sat down.

“I’m sure you know that Doctor Sweets works hard and puts in long hours,” she said. “He is very dedicated to the work he does with you and Doctor Brennan, of course, but he also tries hard with all the agents he works with.  Most of the time, other agents are very professional about the whole thing…but not Larson.”

“Larson?”

“Agent Neal Larson,” Becky replied. “Apparently he’s a recent transfer from the LA branch of the Bureau.”

“I take it that you didn’t like him,” Booth said, noting the secretary’s stiff, formal tone.

“I suppose I didn’t really know him personally, but I do not think his conduct was the least bit professional, no,” she said. “Agent Larson requested a profile for this case he was working on.”

“Do you know anything about the case they were working on?” the agent asked.

“No. Only that it was something involving children who were abducted and then murdered,” Becky replied, shaking her head. “Agent Booth, I’ve worked for the Bureau for over fifteen years. You’d think that by now I wouldn’t let crimes like this bother me, but….”

“Listen, it never stops being difficult,” Booth responded. “Believe me. Doctor Brennan and I…we’ve been in the middle of more than one case involving children, and I can tell you that it still affects us.”

“I guess it would, wouldn’t it?” Becky said. “And perhaps that’s a good thing. But, how do you suppose it is for Doctor Sweets? It’s his job to get into the minds of sick people like that, isn’t it? How do you think he handles that kind of thing? I mean, I know I shouldn’t think this, but…he’s so young.”

Booth nodded, somewhat stunned himself by that thought. As a soldier and then as an agent, he had often had to try to anticipate his opponent’s actions and get a “feel” for what they might be thinking so that he could get the upper hand. Booth was aware, however, that that was not the same thing as what Sweets did in his profession: spending extended periods of time immersing himself into the thought processes of some of the most depraved people out there.

‘ _How does Sweets “switch off” from that?’_ he asked himself. ‘ _How does he let go of the twisted, evil mindsets that he had to study and analyze inside and out in order to help me and other agents catch murderers?’_

Booth shuddered inwardly, disturbed by the idea of Sweets being swallowed into that kind of darkness on a regular basis. He was sure that the cases they all worked on had to get to the psychologist once in a while too, but if it did, Sweets was doing his best to not let it show most of the time.

The agent leaned back in his chair. Whenever he felt his work starting to overwhelm him, Booth made it a point to spend some extra time with friends and family be it Brennan and her group, his old Army buddies, or his grandfather or Parker. Spending time with any of them helped him to relieve the tension he felt after dealing with so much death and despair during the course of his job. Sadly, he was certain that Sweets had very few people who could help the psychologist achieve that kind of release, and the knowledge sickened Booth.

“At first things seemed all right with Larson,” Becky continued. “He would make appointments with me to see Doctor Sweets and would leave promptly when it was time for a patient to come in. But that changed within a couple days. Soon he was showing up unannounced and just blasting his way into Doctor Sweets’ office, even when I told him that he was busy.”

The secretary put a hand to her mouth, contrite.

“Oh…I’m not saying that he’s like you, Agent Booth,” she added. “I know that Doctor Sweets enjoys working with you and everyone at the Jeffersonian immensely. Besides, I know that you would never treat him the way that Agent Larson did.”

“It’s all right, Becky,” Booth assured her. “Just how did Larson act, anyway?”

“I didn’t see most of it first-hand, but more than once I heard yelling from inside the office,” she said. “All of it from Larson, by the way. Other times, he would go into Doctor Sweets’ office late in the evening and then after he left, Doctor Sweets would come out with this haggard expression and tell me that he would be working late that night and that I should go home.  A few times, I saw Larson catch Doctor Sweets when he was going to lunch and lead him back into his office or go off with him somewhere. I know that it’s not my place to say this, but Larson was harassing him terribly. At least that’s my opinion.”

Booth ground his jaw while he listened to this. He was in agreement with Becky in regards to how Sweets was treated and was angry that the therapist had been put into that situation.

“The sad thing is that that isn’t even the worst part of it,” Becky said. Booth nodded, encouraging her to continue even though he was dreading whatever she was going to say next.

“I was talking to Sarah over in personal,” she said. “Apparently Larson was able to get authorization to access a file: Doctor Sweets’ file with the Bureau. Now why would he do a thing like that? I don’t see how that information could be of any use on their case.”

Becky shook herself one last time before she stood up and grabbed her giant lime-green purse. Booth rose to his feet as well.

“I should get going,” she said. “Joe is expecting me home soon. We have plans to see a movie at the theater tonight…if we can find anything we can agree upon. Again, it’s good to see you back, Agent Booth. And I hope that Doctor Sweets feels better here soon.”

“Thank you Becky, and I hope so too,” Booth replied. “Have fun at the movies tonight. Maybe your husband will surprise you.”

“Believe me, Agent Booth, nothing surprises me about Joe anymore,” Becky laughed as she walked away. “But I still love him anyway.”

Booth watched her leave and put the chair he was sitting in back where it was while he considered what the secretary had told him.

‘ _She’s right. There was no reason for this Larson guy to get into Sweets’ file. Just what was he looking for anyway?’_

Booth took a deep breath in order to relax. The more he found out about what happened to Sweets while he was on vacation, the more difficult it became for Booth to remain calm about it. But the agent was also certain now that Sweets was not going to open up willingly about what happened to him. If he was going to confront Sweets about all of this, he would have to be careful and prepared. That meant that he would need to find out more about what happened on his own.

As Booth placed his hand on the doorknob, he decided to shift his focus back onto the case for now.

* * *

 

The agent walked in, causing Sweets to turn in his chair toward the doorway.

“You were right,” Booth said as he made his way to the couch. “It’s not Lucke. He’s got an airtight alibi.” Sweets nodded as he stood up.

“Is there anything else that you can tell me about the victim?” the psychologist asked. “I am trying to work on victimology right now and could use some more information.”

“Not much,” Booth said as he sat on the arm of the couch. “Apparently Hodgins found some silk fibers from around Amy’s neck which he says come from a man’s necktie.”

“That’s interesting,” Sweets said as he sat down in his normal therapy sessions chair. Booth rolled his eyes at one of Sweets’ most annoying verbal tics, but resisted saying anything about it.

“What do you mean interesting?” the agent said instead.

“Well from what we have seen of the killer thus far, he is very controlled and plans carefully,” Sweets explained. “Nothing is left to chance. If our victim was strangled with a man’s necktie, then there is probably some meaning behind it. The tie could be a symbol of his rage.”

“Rage?” Booth replied. “I thought you just said that this guy is all cool and controlled.”

“He is on the surface,” the psychologist said. “But the number of injuries to the victim, along with Doctor Saroyan’s assessment that almost all of the injuries would not have been fatal suggests that the killer had a lot of anger that he needed to work out of his system. And his method of release was inflicting as much pain as he could for as long as possible. Until….”

“Until what?”

“Until he no longer could get what he was looking for from her,” Sweets finished somberly. Booth heaved a deep sigh.

“I’m going over to the university that Amy attended tomorrow to talk to classmates, professors…anyone who might have known more about her and her social circle,” the agent said. “Any chance that you could come along for this outing?”

“Sure, I don’t have any patients tomorrow,” Sweets said.

“Great. Then I will pick you up here tomorrow morning,” Booth said. “We’ll stop by the lab to see if Bones has anything else for us and then head over there.”

“Ok, see you then,” the therapist said as he got up and started to walk back over to his desk. Booth suddenly felt something pull at his insides.

“Hey Sweets, I was still hoping to go over that profile with you, remember?” he asked. “How about we go for a drink so we can do that?” The psychologist’s shoulders slumped as he turned away from Booth toward his desk.

“Thank you, but I am still catching up on reports,” Sweets said quietly. “I got behind recently because I…had to take a day or two off work.”

“Because of what happened on that other case?” Booth asked, confident that he would not need to specify what he was talking about.

“Yes,” Sweets said. “I’m too busy right now.” Booth was convinced that Sweets was not being entirely honest with him, but then figured that it would do more harm than good to call Sweets out on his lie.

“All right then, how about I meet you early for breakfast?” Booth offered. “I could still pick you up from here and we’ll go over it while we grab a bite to eat. Then we can stop by the lab and the university.”

Sweets finally turned to face Booth again. The psychologist’s expression was nearly inscrutable, but the Booth could have sworn that he could detect a flicker of relief mixed with happiness in Sweets’ eyes.

“Fine,” Sweets replied with a hint of smile. “I’ll be here with the profile and my notes, and we’ll go over it during breakfast.”

“Good,” Booth grinned back as he started to leave the office. “I’ll see you later, Sweets.”

The psychologist nodded at him as Booth shut the door behind him. The agent then started to walk back to his office. He hated the idea that Sweets was going to be working late yet again when it was clear that the therapist needed to rest, but was relieved that he was able to convince him to join him for a meal.

Booth knew that, for now, he would have to be satisfied with these baby steps.


	5. Chapter 5

Breakfast at the Diner was a quiet affair at first for Sweets. Booth had arrived at the same time as him, and the two of them sat down at a table near the back wall. The agent started out with more casual chit-chat while they were served some coffee and while they waited for their orders to arrive, so as to make sure that they wouldn’t be talking about anything too gruesome in front of the waitresses.

As he sipped his coffee, Sweets relished this chance to spend time with Booth outside of work. Truthfully, he had felt isolated of late from Booth, Brennan, Angela and Hodgins of late since they were all dealing with either a new baby or a soon-to-be-born baby along with their own relationships with each other. While it was true that Cam did not have a baby to worry about, the pathologist was continuing to concentrate her efforts into making her relationship with Paul work and in helping Michelle find a suitable job while planning her next move academically. As a result, the group did not go out together quite as much as they used to for meals or drinks after a case.

Soon, the food arrived, and the psychologist chewed on a bite of waffle while Booth told him about shopping for a crib with Brennan. Sweets had filled some of his lonely hours with Daisy, but recently she had been spending more time on her dissertation and the rest of her grad work instead of coming over to his place. The therapist had even tried contacting some of his old acquaintances from high school and college. Time spent with them, however, was sporadic at best and often consisted of him listening to numerous tales from their own lives. There was never the same feeling of connection and belonging that Sweets used to feel when he was with Booth and the rest of the Jeffersonian team.

“You should have seen the look on that saleswoman’s face when Bones started to ask about the structural integrity of the wood used for the cribs,” Booth smirked. “I’ll bet that they never told that woman that she would need a degree in engineering in order to wait on customers.”

Sweets smiled back. After everything that Booth faced in Afghanistan and then the debacle surrounding Hannah, Sweets was glad to be able to see the agent so content. Whenever the therapist felt himself sinking to his lowest points mentally and emotionally, he tried to focus on the happiness that was radiating off of his friends. Seeing and empathizing with their joy gave Sweets some small measure of comfort, and unfortunately, that was the best that he found himself hoping for these days.

The psychologist swallowed his food hard and hoped that Booth wouldn’t notice it. Last night had been another bad night with dreams filled with disjointed scenes of death and the faces of murderers laughing at him, taunting him and his work. The jeers were sometimes accompanied by the sights, sounds, and smells of decay and despair. Sweets had been having these nightmares for a couple of months now, and they had only gotten worse since working that case with Larson. He had been marginally grateful that Daisy was not spending as much time with him recently because these dreams would sometimes cause him to wake up with a cry, sweating and shivering. It would then take him hours to fall back asleep, usually because exhaustion would eventually set in. The pain medications that Sweets had received for his wrist and ribs had helped him get a few more hours of sleep the last couple of days, but he knew that he would not be taking them for too much longer. Not wanting to develop any sort of dependency, Sweets had already decided not to ask for any more pills once these ran out, leaving him with the task of finding new methods to ensure that he at least got enough rest to function.

After the two of them finished most of their meal, Sweets pulled out his notes and files and went over his profile in more detail with Booth. The agent listened intently, only interrupting once in awhile with an occasional question. By the end of the psychologist’s report, Booth’s face had become grim. Sweets sympathized; the profile pointed toward a sadistic, but shrewd killer. Still, Booth managed to work up a smile once Sweets was done.

“Good work, Sweets,” he said. The therapist could not stop himself from beaming in response, even though he chided himself inwardly for doing so.

‘ _No wonder why Booth and a lot of the other agents treat me like a kid,’_ he thought. ‘ _Getting so excited just because Booth acknowledged my work…it’s not unlike a child who gets worked up over getting a gold star from their teacher.’_

_‘Was this what Larson picked up on when he worked with me?’_

Sweets took a long drink from his coffee cup, hoping it would hide the frustration he felt at himself.

‘ _Maybe all Larson saw in me was a kid who needed to be looked after to get things done. No wonder he felt the need to keep track of everything I was doing. Maybe…maybe that’s how most of the other agents think too.’_

When he had accepted his job with the Bureau, Sweets was aware that his youth could be a barrier between him and his co-workers, given the type of position he was in. But even though he had embarked on his career with the FBI armed with that knowledge, a part of him remained stunned and disappointed at just how much his age had separated him from the other agents and even from the other psychologists working there.

The rational part of the psychologist’s mind tried to remind him that he didn’t really get this outwardly excited about praise for his work unless it came from Booth or someone else from the lab. Still, Sweets couldn’t help but feel foolish for not maintaining the professional demeanor that he was sure that Booth wanted from him.

For his part, Booth had enjoyed watching Sweets start to grin at his words of encouragement, figuring that he could use the support. Even though he didn’t always understand it or feel comfortable with it, Booth knew that Sweets looked up to him to a certain extent. He could, however, relate to how the psychologist felt when he was given attention for his contributions. The agent remembered vividly to this day how he felt when he managed to earn the respect of superiors he had admired both in the Army and in the Bureau.

Putting that aside, Booth couldn’t help but get a small personal pleasure out of seeing Sweets’ face light up over something as simple as a pat on the back or a couple of words of praise. He was loathe to admit this to himself, but Booth could not deny that his instincts as an older brother tended to kick in when he was around the psychologist. Not that he would ever dare speak that aloud.

But Booth was disappointed to watch the Sweets’ smile quickly fade as he drank his coffee. Something was taking hold of the therapist, and Booth did not like the changes that it was prompting. The agent then decided that perhaps more work was the best solution for now.

“So, I already called the dean to let him know that we were coming and why,” Booth said. “He said that he would have Amy’s class records available at the registrar’s office when we arrive.”

“We should probably talk to Amy’s dorm mates, co-workers and any other people who belonged to any organizations that she did,” Sweets added. “They would have the best idea of what she might have been doing outside of her studies.” Booth nodded in agreement as he gathered up the files sitting on the table. The agent started studying the bill when his cell phone rang.

“Booth,” he answered. The agent listened for a minute before shaking his head.

“Ok, we’ll meet you there,” he said as he hung up. The agent then looked over at Sweets.

“What is it?” the psychologist asked.

“Get this, a body was just discovered by a campus security guard,” Booth answered. “Bones and Cam are already heading over there now.”

“Campus security?” Sweets said, raising an eyebrow. “You mean, like what would be at a university?”

“The very same university that Amy Whitmore attended,” Booth nodded. “And that is just too much of a coincidence for me.”

* * *

 

After paying the bill, Booth and Sweets took off in the agent’s SUV. Along the way, Booth would occasionally mention something about the case, but the psychologist kept quiet for the most part.

Sweets did his best to suppress a gulp as he gazed out the passenger side window.  He had been hoping to avoid seeing any dead bodies in person for a while due to the case he finished up his case with Larson and because of all of the nightmares he had been having. But he did not dare mention this to Booth, so unfortunately, Sweets found himself unwillingly heading toward what was sure to be a harrowing scene.

‘ _I have to stop being so childish,’_ Sweets scolded inwardly. ‘ _It’s part of my job to occasionally go to crime scenes and view remains.’_

Booth soon pulled up to a taped off area of the campus and moved his car over to park while Sweets took a deep breath and swallowed hard, desperate to calm his quaking insides.

‘ _Booth, Brennan….all of them…they deal with death all the time. I need to stop letting things like this bother me or…or they’ll just find someone else who isn’t so affected by this to work with. Someone who they wouldn’t have to coddle and who could earn their respect.’_

The agent turned off the car and got out with Sweets close behind him. They soon saw Cam and Brennan leaning over a large wooden crate which had insects zipping around it.

“Hey Bones, Cam,” Booth said as he approached. “What have we got?” Booth then abruptly coughed and gasped. The stench from the remains was stronger than usual, and Booth could not help but be a little overwhelmed by the pungent smell.

“Female, late teens, early twenties,” Brennan answered.

“Security told us that this area of the campus had been under construction for the past five months,” Cam said. “Apparently there was some kind of dispute with contracting company who was working on the project three months ago and the site has been deserted ever since. And I’m going to guess that this body has been there ever since construction shut down.”

“Despite the fact that insect and scavenger activity was almost halted by the crate, there is not a lot of flesh left,” Brennan continued.

“Well this was the same university that Amy Whitmore attended,” Booth said. “Any chance that this body has something to do with that case?”

“Hard to say right now, there’s not much for me to work with,” Cam replied. “I’ll be sure to run any tissue samples I can get through a tox screen to see if they contain the same sedative cocktail that Amy’s did.”

“I will need to clean the bones and examine them at the lab,” Brennan said. “But it does appear that the hyoid bone was broken. Cause of death could be strangulation.”

“Just like Amy,” Booth nodded.

“Doctor Sweets, are you all right?” Cam suddenly asked. “What happened?”

Booth whirled around to see the psychologist staring silently at the crime scene, his breathing becoming more pronounced. Sweets had become very pale which only emphasized the bruise near his eye which had just started to fade. Sweat trickled along the therapist’s face, and Booth noted a tremor in his hands.

Cam walked over from where she was and studied Sweets’ face.

“What happened to your eye…and your wrist?” she asked. Sweets shook his head and backed up a step.

“It’s nothing,” Sweets stammered. “Things just got kind of intense during a case. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Cam frowned. “You look like you’re about to keel over.” Cam tried to move closer to get a better look, and Booth started to scowl when he saw the psychologist sway on his feet.

“It’s all right, Doctor Saroyan, really,” Sweets replied in the same thin, high voice. “I was…I was just going to….”

“Perhaps you should sit down, Sweets,” Brennan said. “The way you are favoring your left side indicates trauma to more than one of your vertebrosternal ribs. Most likely fracturing. You are probably still in pain from your injuries. Rest would be appropriate.”

“Come on,” Booth said, reaching out to take Sweets by the arm. “Why don’t you wait in the car and in a little while we’ll go talk to the staff here about Amy, all right?”

But the moment the agent touched Sweets’ arm, the psychologist backed away again, shrugging Booth off.

“No, I…why don’t I go to the registrar while you take care of things here instead?” Sweets gasped out. “I’ll start talking to the professors, and I’ll….I’ll meet up with you as soon as you can get away.”

Booth felt his jaw tighten. He was frustrated with how Sweets continued to push away from them, even to the psychologist’s detriment, but another part of him could not deny the logic behind Sweets’ plan of action.

“All right, Sweets,” Booth relented. “I’ll call them and let them know that you’re coming alone. As soon as I’m done here, I’ll catch up with you.”

“Ok,” Sweets nodded weakly. “I’ll let you know if I find out anything.” The therapist then turned and trudged away as quickly as he could.

“Booth, what is going on?” Cam demanded, drawing the agent’s attention back toward her. “What happened to Sweets?”

“I don’t know the whole story,” Booth sighed. “Apparently, he was working some case with another agent while me and Bones were on vacation, and he got hurt during the investigation.”

“Investigation? Is that where he’s been?” the pathologist asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Angela and Hodgins were just telling me yesterday about how they had been wanting to take Sweets out for a meal,” Cam said. “To catch up and all. But they hadn’t seen him around anywhere. Whenever they tried calling him, it would either go to voicemail or Sweets would just take a few seconds to say that he was swamped with work and hang up. He hasn’t been at the lab, the Diner or even the Founding Fathers. We were all starting to worry…and now I’m thinking we had good reason to.”

Cam moved closer to Booth, concern written into her features.

“Are you sure he’s ok to work this case?” she asked him.

Booth opened his mouth to respond, but paused instead. Sweets had always been a little squeamish about the bodies that they dealt with on their cases, but over time, the psychologist seem to adjust and learn to handle it. Thus, he had been startled at how strongly Sweets reacted to this corpse, even though Booth had to admit that this was one of their more disgusting crime scenes.

“Look, I know he’s shaken, but don’t worry. His shrinky mojo is still solid,” Booth replied. “Trust me; it’ll be a lot better if we just let him work for now. This case will give us an excuse to keep a close eye on him, and I think we should use it.”

“Seeley, are you sure he’s going to be all right?” Cam asked. Booth glanced over at Brennan to see her giving him a concerned look of her own.

“He’s going to be ok,” Booth said, making sure to give both of the women a reassuring look. “We will make sure of that.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

About three hours later, Sweets was sitting in the office of Whitmore’s former English professor, listening to him discuss her interest in classic British literature. This was the fourth professor that the psychologist had spoken to and so far the only thing Sweets had been able to gather from these interviews was that Amy was bright, studious, and never missed a class. The result of all this was that Sweets was starting to believe that any pertinent information would have to be gleaned from Amy’s friends rather than from the university staff.

As Sweets listened to the man go over his impressions of Whitmore’s class work, his mind kept drifting back to when he had first left Booth, Brennan and Cam at the crime scene.

* * *

 

_Once he was out of sight of the others, the therapist had leaned against a wall, panting from pain and panic. He spotted a nearby bathroom and immediately went inside, grateful that there was no one else there and that he could lock the door behind him._

_Sweets sunk down into a sitting position onto the tiled floor, leaning back against the wall as he did so. He then started the breathing exercises that he normally did to help him calm down from a bout of anxiety. He was not able to fully concentrate on his breaths, however, and soon recent memories started to flood his mind again._

_‘Look at him, Doctor Sweets. Get down there and look at him, and this time don’t turn away…’_

_‘That could have been you…That was going to be you….’_

_‘Do you see now? Do you see what is at stake? What you are allowing to happen?’_

_Sweets closed his eyes, his hands clutching his knees._

_‘I’m sorry…I’m sorry,’ he repeated in his mind, over and over again as he continued to try to get a hold of himself. He allowed himself a couple of moments to grieve over what had happened in this previous case before re-focusing his efforts to calm himself. As soon as he felt himself regain control, Sweets pulled himself back up onto his feet and went over to the sink to splash some water on his face. After wiping his cheeks off with a paper towel, he stared at his reflection in the mirror._

_The eyes that looked back at him were still a little red, but he had managed to clean off any other trace of his distress from his appearance. The psychologist then made a careful effort to compose his features, removing any trace of stress, sorrow, or vulnerability. Soon, his expression was one of bland congeniality mixed with impersonal professionalism._

_‘It’s time to work now,’ he told himself. ‘If this latest body turns out to be another victim from this same killer, then it’s more than likely that other bodies will turn up before long. He may even be torturing someone right now. I have to help Booth and the others stop this guy.’_

_His resolve set, Sweets straightened his posture and left the bathroom with a slow, but steady gait._

* * *

 

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t be more help, Doctor Sweets,” the professor said, interrupting Sweets’ train of thought. “I hope that you will be able to solve all this soon. Amy seemed like a nice enough girl with a bright future. It’s such a shame, what happened to her.”

“Thank you for your time,” Sweets said as he stood up. “I can assure you that the Bureau is doing everything they can to clear this up as quickly as possible.”

“I heard that campus security found another body here on the grounds this morning,” the man said in hushed tones. “You don’t suppose that that it is another student and that the same person killed him or her, do you?”

“I’m afraid that nothing is known at this time,” Sweets answered. “Also, I cannot discuss an open investigation with anyone here.”

“Oh of course,” the professor said with a wave of his hand. “Procedure and all that. Well, I wish you luck anyway.”

The therapist excused himself and walked out of the office and down the hallway a few steps before stopping to lean against a wall. He pulled out a sheet of paper that he had gotten from the registrar which listed the professors that Amy had had during her last semester at the university along with their office locations on campus. He scanned the paper to see that he had one professor left to talk to, a Doctor Mason Delaney, who was currently the head of the philosophy department.

Sweets shoved the paper back into his trench coat pocket and was about to leave the building when his cell phone went off.

“Hey Sweets,” Booth said over the line. “Bones and Cam are pretty much done here. Anything of interest on your end?”

“Not really,” Sweets answered. “I getting ready to talk to the last of Amy’s professors and after that I was going to go to the campus bookstore where she worked.”

“Give me directions to where you are going and I’ll meet you at this professor’s office,” Booth said. “There’s nothing else for me to do here.”

* * *

 

After letting Booth know where to go, Sweets made his way over to the building that held Delaney’s office. A few minutes later he arrived and found Booth waiting for him next to the professor’s door. The agent gave him a nod once he saw him approach and then started to knock on the door. About a minute later, the door opened, and Booth pulled out his badge.

“FBI,” he said. “I’m Special Agent Booth and this is Doctor Sweets. We’re here to ask you some questions about one of your former students, Amy Whitmore.”

The professor sniffed, disdain evident on his face, and moved away from the doorway so that Booth and Sweets could walk inside. The office which was crammed with bookcases along each wall, leaving only one open space that displayed numerous plaques and diplomas. Delaney himself was a tall, lanky man with flecks of grey hair in at his temples and in his beard. He sat down behind an expansive desk and waved at a pair of chairs on the other side of it.

“Professor Gelb warned me about you,” Delaney said as he leaned back in his chair. “You should know up front though that this is an almost useless endeavor. I hardly knew Miss Whitmore outside of her class work.”

“What about any problems with classmates?” Booth asked. “Any confrontations or arguments that could have escalated?”

“Please,” the professor said, rolling his eyes. “Miss Whitmore was in my Introduction to Ethics class, a freshman level course. It is hardly the hotbed for intrigue or long-standing feuds. Besides, while Miss Whitmore might have been a pleasant enough person, the truth is that she was only a decent student with no innovative ideas of her own. In other words, not really the type who inspires murderous intent in others.”

“And yet someone decided to end her life violently,” Booth retorted, feeling his hackles rise at the man’s cavalier attitude. “So, I’d ask Mr. Delaney that you….”

“It’s _Doctor_ Delaney, if you please,” the professor cut in. “I know that a man like you is probably ill-equipped to appreciate this, but I spent over a decade garnering degrees which culminated in my doctorate. I made it my life’s work to refine my mind and to start others along the same path. I know that I may be asking too much of you to exercise your intellect to a level such as mine, so I ask that you at least try addressing me by the correct title.”

Booth clenched his jaw during this speech and was tempted to let Delaney know what he thought of that suggestion when Sweets suddenly leaned forward.

“I understand your need to make such distinctions Doctor Delaney because you are right,” the psychologist said. “Agent Booth has arrested people from all levels of society and I can assure you that titles never really mattered to him. As for myself, having earned both of my doctorates in less than a decade, I also have a difficult time appreciating all of the years that it took you to reach your current level of education.”

Delaney’s face turned red, and Booth could not completely suppress a smirk. He then made a mental note to treat Sweets to a round of drinks at the Founding Fathers at some point.

“So in the interest of being thorough, which is something I hope _you_ can appreciate,” Sweets continued. “Are you sure that there is nothing else you can tell us about Amy’s interactions with her classmates or any of the university staff?”

“There is not,” the professor sputtered. “Now if you don’t mind, I have a lecture to prepare for. If you need additional information, I suggest that you talk to my assistant, Terry Liption. His office is three doors down the hall from mine. He handles the more trivial concerns of my students. Perhaps he can tell you something.”

“Thank you for your time _Mr._ Delaney,” Booth said stiffly as he and Sweets got up from their chairs. “We will let you know if we need to ask you any more questions.” Delaney scowled at them as they walked out the door. Once they were in the hallway, Sweets turned to Booth.

“Did you actually have more questions for him?” the therapist asked as they walked away.

“Nah, I just wanted him to think that we might,” Booth replied. “The guy is a creep. I can’t imagine why any university would hire him to teach anyone.”

“Sadly, guys like him are not all that uncommon at places like this,” Sweets sighed. Booth nodded and worked to stop himself from grimacing when he realized how much Sweets was dragging his feet while he walked. The psychologist was clearly exhausted, and Booth suspected that it went beyond any kind of physical tiredness. Still, he was aware that there was work to be done for now.

“Hey Sweets, let’s stop by that TA’s office before we go to the bookstore,” Booth said.

“Any particular reason?”

“I don’t know, but something is still bugging me about that guy,” the agent mumbled. “I just keep thinking that there’s something that he’s not telling us.” Booth then grinned at him and patted his shoulder a couple of times.

“Come on,” he said. “I know it’s kind of a long shot, but even if it is, I wouldn’t mind getting another chance to darken that guy’s day.”

“Neither would I,” Sweets smiled back.

* * *

 

“Whitmore? I sort of remember her I guess,” Lipton said. The TA was sitting at a tiny desk with a folding chair while Booth and Sweets stood near the doorway to his office. “I know that sounds kind of bad, considering what happened to her, but…Doctor Delaney keeps me really busy with his stuff…and then I have my own studies to work on, you know?”

“You’re in graduate school?” Sweets asked.

“Yes, for my doctorate in philosophy,” Lipton nodded. “With all that going on, there’s not a lot of time for me to really get to know any of the people in his classes.”

“We understand,” Booth said. “Is there anything you can tell us about her? Anything that stands out in your mind?”

“Nothing special,” the assistant said. “She was doing pretty well, even though she was concerned about her grades at first. I had to go over the grading policy with her at one point. But then…come to think of it….”

“Yes?” Booth replied.

“The last time she stopped by here,” Lipton said. “She was checking on her grades again, and by that point she was doing a lot better. I wouldn’t have remembered that if it wasn’t for the way she reacted when I told her about her current grades.”

“The way she reacted?” Sweets inquired.

“Yeah, it was like she was all surprised or something at first,” the assistant responded. “And then she started…I don’t know…fawning all over Doctor Delaney, going on and on about what a great professor he was and how much he was helping her with her studies.”

“I take that that is not a response you see often,” Booth said.

“Have you met him?” Lipton goggled. “He might be the head of this department, but he’s also a real jerk. And yet here he was putting aside office hours just to help her out.”

“Wait, is that what she said?” the agent asked. “That Delaney was meeting with her privately?”

“Well not in so many words,” Lipton stammered out. “What she said was that he was making sure to help her out. I couldn’t believe it. When I was in his classes, I had a near perfect score on all of his assignments. And do you think he would agree to help me even once in my studies? No way, because that would take precious time away from his lectures and his writing. And yet here she comes along and….”

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Lipton,” Booth interrupted. The assistant immediately looked contrite.

“Oh of course, you need to leave, and here I am complaining,” Lipton said. “And hey, I’m sorry about what I said there. It’s just…I’ve been working as Delaney’s TA for the past two years, and sometimes he drives me crazy, you know? I really do hope you find out who killed her….And hey, is it true that you found another body right here on campus? Did the same person who killed Amy kill them too?”

“We can’t discuss an on-going investigation,” Booth said as he and Sweets edged toward the door. “We’ll let you know if we need to speak to you again about anything else.”

“Ok,” Lipton nodded. “Anything I can do to help.”

* * *

 

They were about half way to the bookstore when Booth cleared his throat.

“Delaney lied to us,” he said.

“He did,” the psychologist replied. “I suppose that someone like him might have not attached any importance to the fact that he was tutoring the victim, even though it was outside the norm for him, and it could have slipped his mind. But….”

“Yeah, I don’t buy it either,” Booth said. “He’s hiding something. I’m going to do some more checking on him when I get back to the office.”

Sweets nodded in agreement and then fell into contemplative silence while they walked. A part of him could see Delaney being the murderer due to his arrogant demeanor and above average level of intelligence, but then the therapist reminded himself that this was speculation and should be treated as such. Normally, Sweets saw nothing wrong with theorizing about suspects, but he was wary of doing it while he was still building a profile for a murderer. He understood that personal impressions of his patients needed to remain separate from objective evaluation and felt that the same had to apply to his profiling techniques.

‘ _Booth will need this profile to be as precise as possible,’_ he reminded himself. ‘ _I can’t let my perspective become slanted by any one person or event.’_

Decision made, Sweets put his thoughts about Delaney in the back of his mind and considered everything else that he learned today, along with the revelation of a possible new victim.

‘ _If Amy’s murder and this new body turn out to be connected…then it can’t be a coincidence that this body turned up on campus. There has to be something else at play here. Some reason why we were able to find both of these bodies in such a short interval of time. More than likely, the murderer is following some kind of twisted agenda.’_

Sweets swallowed hard and jammed his hands deeper into his coat pockets. He hoped that Brennan, Cam and the rest of them could learn more soon about this latest corpse soon.

Because he was now certain that the stakes in this case were only going to get higher.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Five hours later, Booth was back at the Hoover Building and was awaiting any news from the Medico-Legal lab.

He and Sweets had interviewed a few more people around the campus, including Whitmore’s co-workers at the campus bookstore where she worked, but none of them had offered anything other than tearful recollections about how kind and generous Amy was. Seeing how saddened everyone he encountered was about Amy’s death only served to fuel Booth’s frustration over her murder.

‘ _Why her?’_ he wondered. ‘ _She didn’t seem to have any enemies. There doesn’t appear to be anything happening in her life that would make her a target for such a brutal murder.’_

The agent leaned back in his chair and took a sip of coffee. He had, at various times, considered the possibility that Whitmore had been chosen randomly and that she had just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he had his reasons for doubting that theory, one of which being Sweets’ profile on the murder.

‘ _Random isn’t this guy’s style,’_ he told himself. ‘ _There has to be something we haven’t found yet. Something that made this guy choose her specifically.’_

The pinging sound from his computer caused Booth to sit back up. A few seconds later, Angela appeared on his monitor.

“Hey Angela,” he grinned. “What have you got?”

“We have an ID on the body that was found this morning,” she said. The artist tapped at the touchpad in her hands and suddenly the images on Booth’s screen split between Angela and a photo of a blond girl, who was smiling at the camera.

“Carol Lessinger,” Angela continued. “Twenty years old and went missing about five months ago. Apparently her parents thought that she was going on a road trip with friends, but according to those friends, she changed her mind at the last minute. They got back about a month later and it was after talking to them that her parents reported her missing.”

“So she could have been attacked anywhere between when she backed out of the trip and when her friends got back,” Booth said.

“Pretty much, yeah,” the artist nodded. “Oh, get this, she was a student at the university where you found her.”

“Not that surprising,” Booth said, prompting a frown from Angela.

“I haven’t gotten to the good stuff yet,” she said. “Apparently about six months ago, there was this scandal online about an article that was printed in the campus newspaper. It was all about allegations that there were professors on campus who were granting academic ‘favors’ in return for sex.”

“Really?” Booth asked, instantly interested.

“Yeah, but it didn’t go anywhere,” Angela said. “There was an ‘official’ investigation of the claims after which the dean made the paper print an apology. The editor who wrote the piece was accused of libel and was removed from the staff. But there was still talk about the article on several Facebook pages from the students there. Guess who was one of the people who was interviewed for that article?”

“Carol Lessigner.”

“You got it,” she smiled back at him.

“Any mention of Amy Whitmore also being involved with that article?” Booth asked.

“No,” Angela responded. “No mention of her in the article and she was not on the staff of the campus newspaper at any point either.”

“Were there any professors specifically named in all this?” the agent asked.

“Not in that article, no,” the artist answered. “It was supposed to be the first in a series with the second article naming the actual professors who had been accused. But that part never surfaced. The editor was threatened with expulsion if anymore was printed about it, so no one has seen it a word of it.”

“You got a name for that editor?” Booth asked, pulling out a pen and paper.

“Chip Olman,” Angela told him. “He graduated this last semester with honors, and according to the DMV, he’s living in Virginia.”

“Right,” Booth said as he wrote the name down. He then decided that he wanted to pay Chip a visit in the near future.

Just then both Cam and Hodgins appeared behind Angela.

“Hey Booth, I was able to run a tox screen on some tissue samples,” Cam said. “There were trace amounts of the same sedative combination in Lessinger’s body as the one found in Whitmore’s remains.”

“Plus, I was able to pull a couple of thread of fabric from what was left of the tissue around the victim’s throat,” Hodgins added. “Definitely the same kind of silk that I found on Amy’s body. If you can find the tie that was used, I’m sure I could match both sets of threads to it.”

“So both victims were killed by the same person,” Booth nodded.

“It’s looking that way,” Cam said.

“In the mean time, Angela and I were thinking about trying to see if we could do any color or pattern matching with the threads we have,” the entomologist said. “It could make it easier for us to know what we’re looking for.”

“Ok, keep me posted,” Booth said.

“Will do,” Cam responded before the video turned off. A second later, there was a knock at Booth’s door. The agent looked up to see his assistant, Charlie, standing in the doorway with some files.

“Agent Booth?” Charlie said as he walked in. “Here are the files you requested.” The assistant sat a stack of folders down onto the agent’s desk. “I had to give you copies since someone else has the originals.”

“Who has them?” Booth asked.

“Deputy Director Hacker,” Charlie answered. “People are saying that there were some concerns about how Larson handled the case and so Hacker is taking an interest in it.”

“And Larson?” Booth inquired.

“Apparently he’s on personal leave,” the assistant answered. “At least that’s the official word.”

“All right, thank you, Charlie,” Booth said. The man nodded and started to leave when he hesitated.

“Agent Booth…I don’t know a whole lot about this case,” Charlie said. “But I can tell you that there was a lot of pressure from high up to get this one solved as quickly as possible. If you get my drift.”

“You think Larson got a raw deal with this one?” Booth asked.

“If he did, you won’t hear very many people complaining about it around here,” Charlie replied. “Larson was an ass to just about everyone. Real sure of himself. Maybe he just bit off more than he could chew with this case.”

The assistant then walked out, leaving Booth to consider what he had just said. He knew all too well that “personal leave” was often Bureau-speak for suspension for an indefinite amount of time, if not permanently. He then thought about the fact that Hacker was taking an interest in the case.

Andrew Hacker was a lot of things, but one thing that Booth was sure that he was not was a perfectly straight arrow. Booth figured that the press would have been all over a case like this since it involved children, and that Hacker would not have insisted that everything be done completely by the book if that meant a delay in closing this case. Granted, Hacker would not have encouraged any illegal activity, lest it lead to a fiasco in court…but he would not have been too concerned about only playing by the rules.

 _‘So what is Hacker so concerned about?’_ Booth wondered.

Booth had also taken the time to check out various news sites to learn more about the case. He learned that the murderer in question, Darren Algente, had been killed while resisting arrest by the FBI. All reports indicated that Algente even took a shot at the agents as they swarmed the house.

‘ _Why isn’t this an open-and-shut case?’_

Booth pulled the stack of files closer to him and started to flip through them. One of the first things that struck him was how many reports and profiles had been submitted by Sweets. Far more than the usual than what Booth required of him. The agent decided to put aside a couple of hours getting acquainted with this case.

After all, he wanted to be ready for when he talked to Hacker in the near future.

* * *

 

Meanwhile, Sweets slowly walked into the Medico-Legal lab, careful to let himself blend in with the rest of the techs and personnel who were milling about. He had gotten a call from Cam about an hour ago, and she had invited him to drop by the lab so he could get the latest reports about Lessinger for his profile.

The therapist shuddered slightly as he looked around. This was the first time he had been to the lab ever since Vincent Nigel-Murray’s body had been sent back to England for burial. It was a memory that still haunted Sweets to some extent, leaving him with a residue of sadness. Walking along these corridors, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was out of place here, despite the fact that he had spent so much time here in the past. It had become an impersonal and alien space to him, a far cry from how he had seen it before.

The psychologist shook his head as he made his way toward Brennan’s office. He chided himself for spending so much time obsessing over an area of a building.

‘ _It’s just space. That’s all,’_ he told himself. ‘ _It has nothing to do with the people who work here. It’s up to me to decide how to feel about this place and the people within it.’_

Once he reached the doorway to Brennan’s office, he cleared his throat, causing the anthropologist to look up from her computer.

“Um, hi, Doctor Brennan,” he said as he walked inside. “Doctor Saroyan mentioned that she was going to leave some files for me in your office and that I was to talk to you if I had any questions.”

“Yes,” Brennan said, indicating some files at the edge of her desk with a wave of her hand. “Cam said that she would be busy with a staff meeting involving lab procedures. Feel free to go over the files here before you leave though because I am only marginally occupied right now.”

Sweets picked up the stack of folders and sat down on the couch so he could read over them while Brennan continued to type away on her laptop. As the psychologist read, Brennan would occasionally glance over to watch him for a few moments before resuming her own work. Once in a while, Sweets asked her a question about some of the terminology used and its implications, but for the most part he read in silence.

An hour and a half later, the therapist gathered his files and stood up.

“Thank you, Doctor Brennan,” he said. “I’ll go ahead and refine my profile with this additional information.” He then started for the hallway.

“Sweets, may I talk to you about something?” Brennan asked, stopping him. Sweets nodded and moved to sit back down on the couch.

“Angela and Cam have both noted that you have stopped coming to the lab these past few weeks,” she continued. “At first, I did not think much about it since you are a busy person who spends a lot of time at work, much like myself. But recently you were injured and I realized that I have not had a chance to express my condolences over what happened to you as a result of your absence. I would like a chance to do that now.”

“Thank you for that,” Sweets smiled warmly at her. “But this was all pretty minor. You could say that it’s just the normal hazards that a person faces when working within the law enforcement field, as I know that you are aware of yourself.”

“Sweets…do you not want to be friends with us anymore?” Brennan asked. The psychologist blinked hard at the abruptness of the question.

“Doctor Brennan…I….I…..”

“You’ve stopped coming to the lab, you decline any invitation to share meals or drinks with us, and you’ve become completely evasive when it comes to any aspect of your life outside of work,” she said. “It has been my observation that people will avoid other people who make them feel sad or uncomfortable or if they wish to sever social ties. Is one of these scenarios the reason for your recent actions?”

Sweets collapsed back in his seat, his mouth hanging open slightly in shock. Until the moment, he had thought he was doing the right thing by avoiding everyone so as to not burden them with his troubles, but seeing the hurt in Brennan’s eyes filled him with regret. He then became angry at himself for only considering his own viewpoint.

“No, no they are not,” Sweets insisted. “I’m sorry if I made you think that they were. I do care about you, Agent Booth…all of you…deeply. I just….”

The therapist stopped, the words sticking in his throat. A part of him had thought that this distance is what the rest of them had wanted from him, and it was confusing to be presented with an opposing sentiment. The problem was that he feared that vocalizing these thoughts would only hurt Brennan’s feelings even more and make the situation worse overall. Still, he wanted to be honest with her and thus struggled to untangle the emotions he was grappling with.

“I…I just needed some time to myself,” Sweets finally said. “So much has happened in these last few months…I needed some time to get some perspective.”

“I understand,” Brennan nodded. “I felt a similar need when I asked to be a part of the Maluku project. And while I do think that I gained some valuable lessons from the experience, I have come to the conclusion that I might not have used the best methodology to learn those lessons.”

“Why so?” Sweets asked, curious.

“In Maluku, I was able to concentrate on my work and I was able to have ample time to consider my own thoughts and feelings about my life,” she said. “However, there were many times when I would reach some epiphany or would have a question and wished that I could discuss it with Booth or Angela. Then, other times, I would be working and long for the unique perspectives that Cam and Hodgins bring to my professional sphere. Then when I came back, I found that there had been a lot of loss felt by everyone during that time.”

The anthropologist sat up in her chair.

“I do not regret the eventual outcome of my decisions,” she said. “But I do wish that I could have arrived at my conclusions in a way that would not have involved so many hurt feelings for me and my friends. I believe that I should have tried to find the answers that I needed while still maintaining ties with those closest to me.”

Brennan softened her expression and focused her blue-green eyes on Sweets rich chocolate ones.

“I know that our situations are different,” she said. “But I felt it necessary to share my experiences with you, if only to spare you from unnecessary pain. And I am unsure of how helpful I can be in helping you to gain the perspective that you need, but I would like the opportunity to try. I suspect that the others would too.”

By the end of all this, Sweets’ face had resumed its shocked expression. It had not occurred to him to ask for this kind of help partially because he had grown accustomed to being the person that everyone else went to for assistance in these matters. He felt that it was his role, his responsibility both in a vocational sense and in the context of being a member of this family that had come together over the years. It felt unnatural to ask them to nurture him in this way.

“As a start, I was wondering if you would like to join Booth and me for dinner tonight,” Brennan added. “We were thinking about ordering Chinese, and I remember that you’ve mentioned more than once how much you enjoy Chinese food .”

“Doctor Brennan I…I would…are you sure that Booth wouldn’t mind?” Sweets stammered. “Because if you guys had something planned….”

“It’s just a meal,” she said. “But I would still like you to join us. I believe that it will make Booth happy as well.”

“All right,” Sweets said, grinning. “I will see the two of you later. And…thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Sweets,” Brennan smiled back at him. “I’m looking forward to dinner.”


	8. Chapter 8

Booth was escorted into the office area by a perky secretary, who pointed out Chip Olman’s cubicle before skipping away. The agent had made the drive down to the IT office where Olman worked in the hope of getting the man to tell him more about those articles that he wrote for the university paper.

He walked over to Olman’s desk to find a trim twenty-something man with glasses and long brown hair that was tied into a ponytail.

“Chip Olman? FBI Agent Seeley Booth.” Olman peered over his glasses at him.

“Again?” he sighed. “How many times do I have to put up with this kind of harassment? Look, you can go tell Dean Greenbald that I haven’t forgotten our agreement and that he has nothing to worry about, ok? In fact, you can tell him to go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”

“What makes you think that the university sent me?” Booth asked, suddenly curious.

“Why else would you be here?” Olman replied, leaning back in his chair. “I’ve got a clean record, and as far as I know, no one in my family has any criminal ties. So unless you’re here to tell me something I don’t know about my new girlfriend, I’d assume you’re here about that article I wrote.”

“In a way I am here for that,” Booth explained. “I need to know more about the professors you were going to name.” Olman shook his head.

“No can do,” he said. “I made a deal with Greenbald and all the rest of them: I keep my mouth shut and destroy all copies of the article and they don’t get me charged with libel or perform some other kind of punitive action.”

“Yeah, well all of that has changed now,” Booth said. “Carol Lessinger was found dead earlier today and from the look of things, she was abducted not too long after your article came out.”

“Carol’s dead,” Olman gasped. “Oh God…I heard something on the news this morning. Something about a body being found on the campus. That…that was Carol?”

“You interviewed her for that article,” the agent continued. “I need to know what was said.” Olman ran a hand through his hair and stood up from his desk.

“Not here,” he said. “The last thing I need is for my boss or my co-workers to learn about that whole mess.”

* * *

 

A few minutes later, the two of them were sipping at large cups of coffee at an outdoor café that was next to the building where Olman worked. They sat at one of the tables near the edge of the dining area.

“Carol was actually the first person who came to me about all of this,” Olman said. “We’d been friends ever since taking the same freshman English class together. She told me about how she had been ‘foolish’ enough to fall for one of the profs, and how she had broken it off when she realized that she wasn’t his only…’extracurricular activity’.”

“So the professor she was seeing, he had other woman…other students on the side?” Booth inquired.

“Pretty much, yeah. She was not his only one by a long shot,” Olman said, a bitter smile on his face. “Don’t get me wrong, Carol is a…um was a…great person, but she could get really jealous and possessive. After she told me about her affair with this prof, she mentioned that she knew other girls who were sleeping with other professors in order to get some ‘extra credit’ on their grades.”

“Apparently the university held its own investigation into these allegations,” Booth said. “Their report was that there was no hard evidence to back up these claims.”

“Some investigation,” Olman said, rolling his eyes. “That was such a farce. A bunch of department heads and senior faculty walking into the dean’s office and saying that they ‘would never do such a thing’. It didn’t go any further than that. You know why? Because that sort of thing would have freaked out those rich alumni groups who were thinking about donating millions of dollars to the university. So they run a phony investigation, my article gets discredited, I get canned from the campus paper and the university is now building a new wing on the athletic center. Hooray for justice, huh?”

“Listen to me Chip, if these guys are hiding something, then I need to know about it,” Booth insisted. “It could be the reason that Carol was murdered. At the very least, it’s time for these people to learn that you can’t take care of everything by just sweeping it under the rug.”

“Look, I want to help you. I really do,” Olman sighed. “But I don’t want to get in trouble either. After I published that first article, things really hit the fan. They threatened me with expulsion and worse. The only reason they didn’t go through with it was because I was an honor student and it would have looked really bad. But that didn’t stop them from making me write a retraction and threatening all sorts of things if I didn’t keep quiet about it. I have a nice job now, a decent life…I don’t want to throw it all away.”

“The thing is Chip, you have a life to ‘throw away’,” Booth responded. “Carol Lessinger…someone made that decision for her. That person needs to pay. And I need your help to make sure that that happens.”

Olman took a long swig of his coffee, finishing what was left in his cup. He then stared at the bottom of his cup for about a minute before finally looking back up at Booth with a smirk on his face.

“You know what, why not?” he said. “I kept the flash drive that has all of my notes along with the original copies of the first two articles on it. I’d love to see Greenbald’s face when he finds out that the feds are investigating him and his university now.” Olman’s  face suddenly fell after he said that.

“Besides…if my article is the reason Carol got killed…then I want you to nail whomever is responsible,” he said.

“Two more questions: has Greenbald been harassing you a lot here recently and do you remember who Carol said that she was seeing?” Booth inquired.

“Yes to the first one,” Olman said. “After I graduated, they didn’t say much more to me about the whole thing, but then about two months ago, Greenbald started sending me letters and calling me. Telling me how I needed to ‘honor our agreement’ and all that. As for the second question, there’s no way I could ever forget that. She was actually involved with that jerk, Mason Delaney. What she saw in him, I’ll never know.”

* * *

 

Back at the lab, Brennan stared at the latest set of remains that had been laid out onto the examination table in the ooky room. Lessinger’s bones had recently been cleaned and Arastoo had arranged them there after writing up his initial findings: evidence of trauma on all four limbs and around the torso area, hyoid bone broken. Possible cause of death: strangulation.

As she examined the remains on the table, she visualized each of the injuries that could have left the marks she could distinguish in the bones. Often she worked with Angela to create computer simulations to help her understand and sort through puzzling injuries or when the injuries were too numerous to separate from each other, but the fact was that Brennan’s vast knowledge of kinesiology made it possible for her to picture many of the more common injuries on her own. Examining each bone, Brennan could see evidence of the victim struggling against restraints on her wrists and ankles and how one of the shoulders was dislocated after a hard yank from an assailant. Brennan understood how cracks in the clavicle would have been formed by a downward blow from an outside force, causing it to fracture in this manner.

Imagining these things in her mind was a quiet ritual that she performed on many of the remains she came into contact with, especially those who belonged to victims of a homicide. She not only saw how they might have lived due to the clues left in the bones, but also how they died. She wasn’t always sure if she should tell Booth about this ritual. The anthropologist knew that he had a tendency to worry about her to an irrational level at times, and something like this might fuel those worries even more. Other times, however, she imagined that he probably did something similar when he tried to piece together the victims’ lives from what their family and friends told Booth about them and by the way the agent tried to envision their final hours.

Brennan looked down at her abdomen. She was already beginning to feel the changes that her pregnancy was bringing about in her body, but just as significant to her were the changes she was seeing in her interpersonal world as well. She had known for a while about how much value Booth placed on the two of them sharing things with each other, and now that they were in a relationship, that value only seemed to go up for him. She was confident that Booth understood her work as much as he wanted to without going into the “squinty side” of things, but it occurred to her that he would feel closer to her if she were to share thoughts like these with him. She then made a mental note to tell him about them at some point.

“Hey sweetie.”

Brennan looked up to see Angela walking into the room. There was a smile on the artist’s face, but Brennan noted that her eyes did not match her expression.

“Cam told me about Sweets,” Angela continued. “Is he all right?”

“Yes,” Brennan answered. “The bruise around his eye is healing well and he appears to have only cracked his….”

“That’s not what I mean,” Angela interrupted. “Booth told Cam that that happened to him during a case. That’s awful. Why wasn’t the agent working with him more careful about Sweets’ safety?”

“Most agents are not as skilled as Booth,” Brennan replied. “I imagine that Sweets ended up working with an agent with only subpar skills.”

“Still…did a suspect do that to him? Or a murderer?” the artist asked. “I mean, if someone was able to do that much to Sweets, it could have been a lot worse. He could have been killed.” Angela stopped and leaned against the table, wringing her hands.

“You’re upset,” Brennan observed.

“Aren’t you?” Angela gasped. “This is Sweets we’re talking about here. We could have lost him. For all we know, we came really close to losing him.”

“I suppose that that was a possibility,” Brennan said. “But I prefer to focus on the fact that Sweets only has minor injuries and is safe now.”

“Well that is a relief,” Angela admitted. “But what about after it happened. None of us knew. And Sweets, he’s just been shutting himself away at work, carrying on as if nothing happened. And we let him. We let him do that and we didn’t even ask ourselves if there was something wrong.” Brennan regarded her with an attempt at a reassuring look.

“Sweets explained that to me,” she said. “He said that he needed some perspective, much like I did when I went to Maluku.”

“But that’s you, sweetie,” Angela said. “That’s not Sweets. He’s the kind of person who needs to have other people help him work things out.”

“I invited him to dinner tonight,” Brennan added. “Perhaps he will feel better after spending some time with me and Booth.”

“I’m sure he will,” Angela said as she backed out of the room. “I just…I hope that he’s feeling better soon.”

“I believe that he will,” the anthropologist said. “His injuries appear to be healing at the normal rate.”

“Yeah well, let’s hope that everything else is healing at the normal rate too,” Angela said before she walked away.

* * *

 

That evening, Booth, Brennan, and Sweets sat around Brennan’s table with cartons of food and stacks of paperwork surrounding them.

Booth had brought some things over to the apartment so that he could spend the next couple of days there, as was his habit of late. He then changed into more casual clothes before picking up the food and bringing back to her place. Sweets showed up a couple of minutes after Booth got back, having changed himself from his suit to a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved black tee shirt. The three of them then dived into the food and went over various aspects of the case that they were working.

“I sent you a copy of Olman’s articles,” Booth told Sweets in-between bites of lo mein. “Delaney was named along with five other professors. I can’t believe that they actually tried to hush this entire thing up just because these guys had a bunch of seniority. Talk about entitled.”

“Throughout history, many societies silently condoned the practice of demanding favors from the lower classes as a way to exert their power,” Brennan said. “One of the most common methods of appeasing the elite was through sexual favors with money and property gifts also being popular.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Booth protested. “These professors were getting away with it just because they had a bunch of fancy degrees, and these girls were getting grades that they didn’t deserve to have.”

“Something’s strange about that,” Sweets mumbled as he gazed into the carton of fried rice. Booth looked over at him to encourage him to say more, but was startled to see the psychologist shrug and pick at his food with his chopsticks instead.

“What is it, Sweets?” Booth finally asked quietly.

“Amy Whitmore,” the therapist said, looking up. “Everything we’ve learned about her does not point toward a woman who just looks for a cheap advantage for herself.” Sweets scooped out some rice and chewed on it for a moment before continuing.

“If she slept with Delaney…I don’t think she just did it for the grades,” Sweets said after swallowing. “Which makes me wonder, why was she a target? Did someone else know about her affair with Delaney?”

“Good question,” Booth replied. “I’m going to do some checking on all of the professors in Olman’s article, but I think it’ll be worth our time to see if Whitmore was actually sleeping with Delaney or not. Otherwise, he’s just one of a list of possible suspects.”

The psychologist nodded and soon the conversation drifted off into more casual topics while they finished their meal. Sweets did not say much, choosing instead to soak in the familial feel of this situation, an experience he hadn’t realized that he had been craving until now.

Once they finished eating, they cleaned up and moved out to the front room to continue their conversations. About two hours later, during an animated discussion about the merits of private schools versus public schools, Brennan and Booth looked over to see that Sweets had fallen asleep in his chair. The two of them smiled and cuddled closer together on the couch.

“Do you think that he enjoyed himself?” Brennan asked. “He was mostly quiet during dinner.”

“Trust me, he did, Bones,” Booth assured her, pulling her close. “You did the right thing inviting him. This is probably the best meal and the most sleep he’s had in a while.”

“He told me that he needed perspective,” Brennan said. “Angela said that he needed company. Was Sweets lying to me?”

“No. Both of those things are probably true,” Booth said. “Sweets is a complex guy. Angela’s right in saying that he needs other people to work things out…but he’s also a bit like you in that he needs to figure things out for himself. All of you squints are complicated like that.”

“As are you,” Brennan said while taking his hand into hers. “Although I do not completely understand why you choose to downplay it.” Booth gave her a mischievous smile before kissing her. The two of them then glanced over again at Sweets as he stirred in his sleep.

“Should we wake him?” Brennan asked.

“No, he needs sleep,” Booth answered. “But he shouldn’t stay there.”

They both got up, and Brennan went to get a pillow and blanket while Booth went over to the chair.

“Come on, Sweets,” the agent said as he gently pulled the psychologist into a standing position.

“Mm?” Sweets mumbled as he got up, his eyelids only half open. He leaned heavily against Booth while the agent guided him to sit down onto the couch. Once there, the psychologist flopped over to his side just seconds after Brennan had placed a pillow down for his head. As Sweets curled up on the couch, Booth draped the blanket over him.

“Booth?” Sweets slurred out drowsily, his eyes almost closed.

“Go back to sleep, Sweets,” Booth said, patting his shoulder. The psychologist gave a very slight nod and immediately fell back into a peaceful slumber. Booth and Brennan turned off the lights in the front room, took each other’s hands and walked into the bedroom together.

The two of them did not leave the bedroom, and Sweets remained blissfully free of nightmares while in a deep sleep for the rest of the night.  



	9. Chapter 9

The next morning, Sweets woke up to the sound of footsteps advancing toward the couch. He cautiously opened his eyes and was mortified to realize that he had spent the entire night there. The psychologist blinked hard and looked up to see Booth and Brennan looking at him with content, smiling faces. As he started to pull himself into a sitting position, Sweets consoled himself with the notion that they seemed to enjoy having him at their place.

‘ _That and I guess I must have really needed the sleep,’_ he thought to himself ruefully. He ran a hand through his hair and noticed that they were both already dressed for the day.

“Come on, Sweets,” Booth said as he snatched up the blanket from the couch. “Bones and I will run you by your place so you can get changed, and then we’ll run by the Diner for some breakfast.”

Booth then started to fold the blanket while Brennan picked up the pillow and went to return it to a nearby closet. Sweets stood up and rubbed his eyes while he watched them straighten up the front room.

“After that I will need to get back to the lab,” Brennan said. “Hopefully Mr. Vaziri will have gathered some useful information from Carol Lessinger’s bones.”

“Right,” Booth nodded. “And we need to head back to the university. I set up an appointment to talk to the dean later this morning. So chop-chop Sweets.”

“Ok,” the therapist replied before shuffling over toward the bathroom. Just before walking in, however, he paused, his hand resting on the doorknob.

“Agent Booth, Doctor Brennan,” he said softly. “I…thank you.”

“You’re welcome Sweets,” Brennan smiled.

“And hey,” Booth chimed in. “Nothing says that we can’t do it again here soon, all right?”

Sweets nodded and went into the bathroom so he could get started with the day.

* * *

 

Almost two hours later, Sweets and Booth were sitting in a pair of rickety wooden chairs in front of an expansive oak desk in Dean Greenbald’s office. The dean was a sallow man with an obvious comb-over and an even more obvious abundance of irritation at their presence.

“Since when did the FBI start instigating investigations from things as spurious as the gossip of ill-mannered teenagers?” Greenbald said. “Maybe I should be contacting your superiors?”

“You could do that,” Booth said coolly. “And if you did you would be reminded that two people are dead. Murdered. One of whom was found on campus grounds, and both of whom just happened to be students at this university. That is the kind of thing that the FBI tends to take very seriously.”

“Look, I’m sorry about those two young girls. I really am,” the dean said, his voice void of emotion. “But I’m sure that it’s just a coincidence that they both happened to be students here. We are a large university after all. Their deaths are a sad commentary on society today, to be sure, but it’s not an extraordinary occurrence.”

“Are you also trying to tell me that it’s just a coincidence that both victims had been in Delaney’s classes?” the agent asked in response.

“Yes I am,” Greenbald replied, defiant. “As you probably know, our university has a distinguished liberal arts program, dedicated to developing well-rounded individuals. As a result, philosophy courses are included in many of the programs for a variety of majors, and Doctor Delaney happens to be the head of our philosophy department. It’s not that big of a surprise that he happened to have had both of these girls as his students, and it’s certainly not incriminating in any way.”

“Maybe not,” Booth said. “But you seem to be doing a lot to keep everything hushed up. So how about some cooperation? Or is there something you don’t want us to find?”

“There is nothing to find,” Greenbald said, rolling his eyes. “These are just baseless rumors and, quite frankly, a waste of time. I don’t see how they could help you in your investigation.”

“Well how about you let us make that call,” Booth responded. The dean gave one last protracted sigh before indicating with his hand that they could continue.

“After Olman’s article came out, what actions were taken by the university?” Sweets asked.  “Was there actually a formal investigation?”

“Or were you more concerned with not causing a scandal?” Booth cut in.

“I don’t like your tone,” Greenbald sniffed. “But for your edification, we actually do take allegations like the ones mentioned in that article very seriously. I arranged a meeting with Olman so that I could get the full picture of what was supposed to have been going on. I then met with every professor who was named in Olman’s notes and discussion the accusations with them. After talking to them, I was convinced that these rumors were nothing more than vicious gossip.”

“How did you reach that conclusion?” the psychologist inquired.

“I told you,” the dean said. “I had a long talk with each of them. I happen to pride myself on being able to discern when people are not being straight with me. They each gave me their personal assurances that there has been no impropriety on their parts, and I believe them. The fact is, they were far more convincing than most of those girls that I talked to.”

“You spoke to them too?” Booth asked. “About the professors?”

“I did,” Greenbald said, a confident smile appearing on his face. “I called each of them in here and thoroughly questioned them. There were a couple of them who were able to put up a good show, but most of them couldn’t even keep their stories straight. There were even a couple of them who wouldn’t show up and who chose to drop out rather than actually face up to their own accusations. Believe me, that’s a sure sign of a guilty conscience.”

“Or maybe they were scared or embarrassed,” Sweets said, venom suddenly filling his voice. “Didn’t it occur to you that interrogating them like suspects was not the best approach to take in a situation like this? These women were the victims here.”

“No, my colleagues were the victims here,” Greenbald shot back. “These were just some opportunistic girls who thought that they could somehow “take revenge” on these hard-working professors for doing their jobs.” The dean then leaned toward Sweets.

“You know, I’ve seen it all before,” he told the psychologist. “You get these girls here, many of whom have never really experienced much of the world. They get this romantic notion about finding a ‘worldly’ man who will show them the ‘ways of love’. And maybe something happens, but then they get this foolish idea in their heads that it’s forever and then their hearts are inevitably broken…that is until they catch the eye of some big jock on campus.”

“Are you saying that some of the professors actually admitted to sleeping with their students?” Booth asked, incredulous.

“I’m not denying that certain events may have occurred between consenting adults,” Greenbald sighed.  “But there was no impropriety, no special favors given, no academic favoritism. So, there really is no need to make a scandal out of a few…indiscretions.”

“It may not be illegal, but that doesn’t make it right,” Sweets spat back. The therapist moved to the edge of his chair and met Greenbald’s gaze.

“The parents of these students trusted you and your staff to act appropriately with their loved ones,” Sweets continued. “The students trusted you and your staff to provide them with guidance and instruction and to help them set the foundation for the rest of their lives. Those professors took advantage of that trust. Did you honestly think that it would be easy for them to talk about what happened to them? Especially when they were being questioned like they were the ones who were at fault? Did you even offer them some kind of counseling services to help them work through this or did you just try to forget about them the minute that they left your office?”

The dean’s face turned red with wrinkles appearing around his mouth and eyes while his features twisted into a scowl.

“How dare you try to tell me how to run things?” Greenbald snapped. “A kid like you. Have you even finished college yet? Let’s see you try to do my job and put up with these kids. I bet that you wouldn’t even last a week.”

“We’re going to need to talk to all of the professors that Olman named in his article,” Booth said. “Along with any of the students involved who are still in attendance here. You can help by giving me a list of the students you talked to and the status of all the students that were mentioned in Olman’s notes.”

“Give me one good reason why I should help you in your muckraking,” the dean grimaced.

“You want a good reason?” Booth frowned. “Ok, here’s one: you can either cooperate with us in our murder investigation or I can hold a press conference in which I report that our investigation is being stalled by you and your staff for reasons unknown. How discreet do you think the reporters, trying to find out about those unknown reasons, are going to be?”

The dean’s face turned an even darker shade of scarlet, his shaking hands clutching the edge of his desk.

“You can’t do that,” Greenbald seethed.

“I can and I will,” Booth replied. “These women were murdered brutally, and I mean to do whatever it takes to find their killer, whether you help me or not. So what’s it going to be?”

“Fine, do what you want,” Greenbald said. “But just so you’ll know, I will be offering legal representation to any of my professors who request it. I’m not going to have you turn this investigation into some kind of witch hunt. And I’m telling you for the last time, you’re not going to find anything. Especially in regards to Doctor Delaney.”

“What makes you so sure in his case?” Booth asked.

“Doctor Delaney showed me his grade books and copies of the exams that the students in question had turned into him,” the dean answered. “I looked over all of it. There was no evidence that he gave any of his students grades that they didn’t deserve. And just so you’ll know, the exams are administered by a proctor outside of his department, so there was no chance that he could have assisted them during exams.”

“We’re still going to need to talk to him anyway,” Booth insisted. “He is the only professor on the list who had had both of the victims in one of his classes.”

“Fine, fine,” Greenbald said while shooing them away with his hands. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I actually have some real work to do.”

* * *

 

After they left Greenbald’s office, Booth and Sweets walked silently down the hallways and exited the building. Sweets was about to ask what their next move was going to be when Booth grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the side of the building.

“Hey, are you ok with all this?” he asked the psychologist. Sweets sighed.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled. “I just…I’m fine.”

“Look, I get that that guy is a jerk,” Booth said. “And I agree with you that what they are doing, sleeping with their students, it’s wrong on a lot of levels. But we need to focus on solving these murders before worrying about anything else.”

“I’m sorry,” Sweets said, looking away. “You’re right. This case should take priority, and…and the dean is right. There’s nothing we can do legally. But….”

Booth frowned as he watched Sweets fidget. The agent was certain that there was more going on here than the natural disgust at what they had learned, but he also knew that now was not the time to ask about it. He then reached over and patted Sweets on the arm.

“Sweets, are you up for talking to some more people today?” he asked. “Or did you want to head back and I’ll….”

“No, I’m fine,” Sweets said, finally looking back up at him. “I promise, I won’t lose control again….So who did you want to talk to now? The professors?”

“No I want to do some looking into their backgrounds before I bring them in,” Booth answered. “In the meantime, I want to try talking to some more students. Someone around here is bound to know more about Whitmore and Lessinger. We just need to find them and get them talking.”

Sweets nodded and they started to walk away when they suddenly spotted a young woman approaching them, her sky blue eyes darting from left to right as she walked.

“Um…you guys are from the FBI, right?” she nearly whispered. “You’re trying to figure out who killed Ames…I mean, Amy Whitmore, right?”

“Yes we are,” Sweets said, trying to both smile and remain somber at the same time. “Is there something you need to share with us about it?”

The woman slumped against the brick wall next to them and hung her head.

“My name is Candice Kipfer,” she said. “And I…I should have said something sooner, but….” Kipfer pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped at her eyes.

“I just didn’t want to believe it, you know?” she warbled. “When she went missing for all that time, I kept telling myself that she could still turn up, that she could still be all right. Even when they said on the news that her body had been found, I guess I…I kept hoping that it would all turn out to be some kind of big mistake. But then when you guys showed up and started asking questions…I knew then that it was true. That she was gone and that she was never coming back.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sweets said. Kipfer sniffed hard and nodded.

“Anyway, I feel so bad about not talking to you before,” she continued. “But I want to make up for it now…if, you know, you think it will help you catch the guy who did this.”

“Anything you tell us could be helpful,” Booth assured her.

“Ok…well, I know that Amy was seeing someone before she…disappeared,” she responded.

“Thomas Lucke?” the agent asked. The woman shook her head.

“No, um…this was someone else,” Kipfer said.  “Amy and Tommy, they were having some problems and Amy…she was tired of being by herself while Tommy tried to figure out what he wanted. I could tell that this relationship wasn’t serious, but for the longest time she wouldn’t tell me who she was seeing. Then she finally admitted it. She was having a fling with Doctor Delaney.”

Booth gave Sweets a meaningful glance which the psychologist responded to with a nod.

“Hey, I know what everyone is saying right now,” Kipfer added. “That a bunch of the professors have been handing out good grades to students who are sleeping with them. Especially now that that whole thing with Carol being found…But Amy wasn’t like that. She wasn’t seeing him just to get an A in his course. She just…she wanted something different, you know? Different from Tommy.”

“Someone older, more stable,” Sweets offered. “Someone who had a more mature outlook on life.”

“Something like that, yeah,” Kipfer nodded. “I mean, I couldn’t really figure out what she saw in him, but I know that she enjoyed being with him. I guess that was enough. Besides, that’s the kind of person Amy is…um, was….She…she always brought out the better side of people.”

Kipfer’s hands trembled as she buried her face in them.

“I just can’t believe she’s gone,” she sobbed. “Why? Why did this happen? Who could do something like this to her?”

Sweets placed a comforting hand on her shoulder while she cried. He then looked over at Booth and was not surprised to see the same grim determination on the agent’s face that he felt inside.


	10. Chapter 10

The rest of the day had been a busy one for Booth.

* * *

 

After he and Sweets had finished talking to Kipfer, they tried once again to talk to more of the students in an attempt to gather more information about Whitmore and Lessinger with little success.

The only thing that Booth gained was the possibility that there was another victim involved.

Toward the end of rounds of questioning, one of Lessinger’s friends had given a tearful account about another student who had been missing for over a year: Sara Perkins.

* * *

 

_The student, one Sharon Birlew had asked to speak to Booth and Sweets privately and they ended up talking while sitting on a bench across from the football field._

_“I know that she’s not one of the people who has been…whose death you’re investigating,” Birlew told them. “But she’s been gone for so long, and you have to understand that  Sara was not the type of person who would just dump college and run off, you know? She wanted to be a teacher more than anything else in the world. It was her dream to be a professor at a place like this. And besides that…I know you’re investigating the people mentioned in that article that Chip Olman wrote. You are, right?”_

_“Ms Birlew,” Sweets said. “We can’t….”_

_“Well Sara never came out and said it, but I’m pretty sure she had an affair with one of the professors here during her first semester,” Birlew continued, ignoring Sweets. “I think…I think she really regretted it, and that’s why she wouldn’t talk about it.”_

_Booth had been listening mainly as a way to indulge her, but as she continued, he found himself increasingly intrigued and wondered if perhaps this warranted looking into._

_“I know that you are busy trying to find out about Carol, and that other girl, Whitmore,” she added. “And I…I hate what happened to them, but I….Please. Could you please look into what happened to Sara? She…she’s not the kind of person who should be just cast aside and forgotten about.”_

* * *

 

All during the ride back to DC, Birlew’s pleas echoed in Booth’s mind.

‘ _Cast aside and forgotten about?’_   he mused. ‘ _No…This Sara Perkins probably wasn’t the type of person who this should happen to.’_

_‘No one is, really.’_

Once he got back to his office, Booth decided to do some quick checking on his computer into Perkins’ case file. A missing person’s report had been filed on her about a week after she was lasted reported seen. Local authorities had investigated, but nothing had been turned up. The parents had even offered a reward for any information that could turn up new leads, but the case still had gone cold.

Booth stared at the photo of Perkins that was displayed on his screen. She was smiling and that smile extended all the way up to her dark blue eyes and all the way over toward her waves of strawberry blond hair.

Acting on a hunch, Booth looked through his notes until he found a number that he was looking for: the one for Delaney’s assistant, Terry Lipton.

“Sara Perkins? Off the top of my head, I’m not sure,” Lipton said over the line once Booth had gotten a hold of him. “Let me check.”

Booth could hear the rustling of papers and the tapping of keyboard keys in the background while he waited. He was prepared to wait patiently in silence until Lipton’s voice came back on the line.

“Hey uh, are you guys making any progress on that whole murder thing?” he asked. “I heard that you’re investigating Amy’s and Carol’s deaths together. Is that true? I mean, I remember Carol. She seemed nice enough. Did pretty well in Delaney’s class too, if I’m remembering right. She was often hanging around his office and….hey, wait! This Sara Perkins you’re checking on….wait, you don’t think that she’s been murdered too, do you?”

Booth deflected Lipton’s questions as impersonally as he could while still remaining polite and soon the assistant relented.

“Ok, ok, sorry about all that,” Lipton said sheepishly. “I should have known that you can’t really talk about it. I guess I’m just a little edgy is all. I know it’s not really your fault, but ever since you guys started poking around here…well let’s just say that it’s gotten more difficult to work with Doctor Delaney…for a variety of reasons.”

“Like what?” the agent asked, his curiosity piqued.

“Well he’s become even more short-tempered here recently,” Lipton answered. “I know that you’ve met him and that that might not seem possible, but believe me, it is. I swear he’s always been sort of wound tight but now…he’s getting really secretive and paranoid too. Always asking me if anyone’s talking about him and ordering me to not discuss anything we talk about with anyone else. I mean, he was anal about stuff like that before, but now it’s increased ten-fold.”

Booth listened with interest to the things that Lipton was telling him. He figured that Delaney’s behavior could partially be chalked up to the natural response some people had to being investigated. But he also suspected that it could be more than just nerves from being part of a criminal investigation.

“Ah here we go,” Lipton said. “Sara Perkins was in Doctor Delaney’s intro philosophy class and in his ethics class about a year ago. Looks like she had a rough start in the intro class, but she still managed to pull of some pretty good final grades.”

“Thank you for your time,” Booth replied.

“No problem,” the assistant said. “And hey, sorry to dump all that other stuff on you about Doctor Delaney. I know you’ve got important stuff to do and all…Anyway, just let me know if you need anything else.”

“I’ll do that,” Booth said before hanging up. As he glanced over again at his computer screen, his expression became grim.

‘ _In fact, I might be doing that sooner rather than later.’_

* * *

 

After a quick lunch with Brennan, Booth went back to his office and started to go over the files he had been sent about the professors that had been named in Olman’s article, along with Sara Perkins’ case file. The agent didn’t find much in the professors’ files other than the garden variety traffic violations, with Delaney’s being the cleanest file of all of them.

‘ _Still, both victims were in his class, and both of them were known to have a relationship with him,’_ Booth pondered. ‘ _And now there’s this other missing student who was also in his class. That’s just too much of a coincidence.’_

Booth glanced over at the clock on his computer and stood up to put his suit jacket back on. He thought about looking over the files with Sweets to see if the psychologist could find anything that he couldn’t, but he knew that Sweets was seeing patients right now. He made a mental note to stop by the therapist’s office later and then left his office to walk down the hall.

For the moment, the agent decided to put the case aside. He had set up a meeting for today with Hacker and he had no intention of being distracted during it.

* * *

 

“Agent Booth,” the deputy director grinned as Booth walked into his office. “Go ahead and sit down.”

Booth sat down onto one the chairs across from Hacker’s desk silently. Hacker had a way of seeming casual and carefree on the surface, even though Booth knew that that was usually far from how he actually was. Still, Booth found that he was in no mood for an elaborate dance around the issues today.

“This isn’t meant to be an official meeting, is it?” Hacker said, noting the expression on the agent’s face. Booth shook his head.

“All right then,” he continued, a smile still on his face. “I think we can dispense with the whole “boss/subordinate” thing for a few minutes. So tell me, what’s this about?”

“The Darren Algente case,” Booth replied. Hacker nodded.

“I should have known this would be about that,” he said. “Especially given what happened to Doctor Sweets. I know that you consider him one of your people. By the way, how is he doing?”

“He’s fine,” Booth answered curtly. “Why are you looking into this?”

“It was a high profile case,” Hacker answered smoothly. “You know how the press eats up this kind of thing. It would be bad for the Bureau if no one made sure that everything was completely in order and that all protocols were followed.”

“Come on,” Booth said, grimacing. “I thought that we were dropping the boss/subordinate thing for this conversation.” Hacker started to chuckle, his mouth still frozen in a smile.

“You’re right. We were,” he replied. “Sorry, force of habit.”

The deputy director then leaned toward Booth, much of the mirth leaving his face.

“I’ve actually had an eye on Larson for a while now,” Hacker continued. “When he was transferred here, he had gotten glowing recommendations from his former superiors. Perhaps a little too glowing given his solid, but thoroughly average record.”

“Almost as if they were trying to get them out of their hair by deflecting him our way,” Booth said. “And in a manner that made it look like they weren’t sending a potential problem into our turf.”

“You know me so well,” Hacker grinned. “Fortunately, I know my counterparts in LA equally well. I know a warning sign when I see one, even if they are trying to hide it.”

“So why give him this case?” Booth asked.

“Larson requested it,” Hacker said. “I figure that he felt that he had something to prove, being the new transfer and all and given the reputation he was starting to get around this office. Besides, you were on vacation and all the other homicide agents were tied up in major cases of their own.  I decided that this would be a good “make or break” case for him.”

Booth nodded in response. He was certain that what Hacker actually meant was that either Larson had to make a compelling case against one of the suspects or the deputy director would break him. But the agent figured that there was no need to say that aloud.

“How did Doctor Sweets become involved?” he asked instead. “Was that your suggestion?”

“Actually that had more to do with you than anything else,” Hacker said, pointing a finger at him. “Apparently Larson was running into a bit of a wall in his investigation, and he heard around the office about all the leads that Doctor Sweets had been able to help you dig up in the past. So soon, Larson formally asked him to help out with this case to help him cut down the suspect pool.”

“Is that why there are so many reports in this file from Doctor Sweets?” Booth asked with more than a little sarcasm. “Because he was just helping him get a couple leads?”

“Yes, I thought that was odd too at first,” Hacker said thoughtfully. “But Larson did seem to be getting results, and he needed them. After all, two more bodies surfaced during his investigation.”

“The reports said that Doctor Sweets was present at Darren Algente’s residence when the SWAT team showed up to apprehend him,” Booth added. “Do you know what he was doing there? Was Larson taking him out into the field?”

“From what I understand, yes,” Hacker answered. “Not unlike what you have been doing here of late.”

Those words felt like a blow to the gut to Booth. He knew that it was true that he had been taking Sweets out into the field more and more here recently. It had seemed like a natural extension of the fact that Booth had involved him in more aspects of his cases and was also due to his desire to keep Brennan in the lab more now that she was pregnant. He had learned to deal with the concern that taking Sweets into the field more could lead to increased risks for the psychologist by telling himself that Sweets wouldn’t really be in too much peril since he was accompanying him at all times.

He hadn’t considered the possibility, however, that other agents might start to get the same idea.

“I don’t bring consultants into a situation where SWAT is required,” Booth said, bristling at Hacker’s words. Hacker could sense Booth’s unspoken questions, and he leaned back in his chair.

“SWAT was called in because of a turn of events at the scene,” Hacker said. “Larson had been shot and Doctor Sweets had been taken hostage by Algente.”

“He what?” Booth growled. The agent gripped the armrests on his chair until his knuckles turned white.

“Larson’s injury was very minor,” Hacker continued, ignoring Booth’s agitation. “But by that point, things had gotten out of control, and Doctor Sweets was in the hands of an armed and dangerous suspect. Fortunately, SWAT was able to get a handle on the situation swiftly before any of our men had any serious injuries.”

“So it was Algente who hurt Sweets,” Booth muttered to himself. He then gave Hacker a hard stare.

“Why exactly was Doctor Sweets going to confront an armed suspect in the first place?” the agent nearly spat.

“Larson indicated in his reports that he wasn’t sure if Algente was really dangerous or even the murderer,” Hacker said. “But truthfully, his earlier reports along with Doctor Sweets’ assessments do seem to contradict that assertion.”

“Is that why you are looking into this?” Booth asked. “Because of inconsistent reports?” Hacker sat upright in his chair, his eyes becoming stony despite his overall relaxed demeanor.

“That’s one reason,” he replied. “But mostly because I do not plan to make some of the same mistakes my predecessors did. I have no intention of letting things descend into chaos and into a public scandal. Not while I’m in charge. And I’m not entirely sure if you are aware of this Agent Booth, but Doctor Sweets is considered to be an extremely asset to the Bureau. Quantico has been salivating at the chance to snatch him up for some time now, and it has taken some doing to keep him here in this office.”

Although he had managed to keep his expression neutral, Booth could not help but feel another twist of regret. Despite his occasional grumbling about the “squintiness” of the members of his team, Booth could not help but be consistently impressed with the intelligence and gifts that they demonstrated…and that included Sweets. Still, he had to admit that it had been easy to simply regard Sweets as a young kid, who while still an asset to his team, was still just a kid. It had been easy to forget that he was also a gifted professional who the FBI had actually started to scout for themselves while he was still in his late teens.

“So rest assured, when one of my agents almost botches a major case and almost gets one of the Bureau’s prized consultants killed, I take notice,” Hacker added.

“And Larson?” Booth said.

“Larson’s future has yet to be determined,” Hacker responded. “After a long discussion about the situation with him, we both agreed that it would be best if he took a leave of absence while this was sorted out.”

Booth nodded again. He imagined that it had been a mostly one-sided conversation, but found it difficult to muster up any sympathy for Larson. He was about to draw this meeting to a close when one last question occurred to him.

“How did Larson access Doctor Sweets’ personnel file at the Bureau?” he asked. Hacker narrowed his eyes.

“A misguided favor that Larson was able to utilize from someone in the HR department,” he said. “I’ve already dealt with them.”

“And Doctor Sweets’ file….”

“Is not relevant to my investigation,” Hacker finished for him. “It will not be examined further. Now, was there anything else, Agent Booth?”

“No sir,” Booth said as he stood up and moved toward the door.

“Oh Booth, give my regards to Temperance,” Hacker said, smiling again. “I’m sure that she’s going to be a wonderful mother.” Booth continued to slowly back toward the door, unable to keep the surprise at those words off his face. Hacker chuckled again.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I always had a feeling in the back of my mind that this was how it was going to eventually turn out, despite what the two of you insisted. But then again, I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy myself while it lasted. Oh and by the way, Katherine…I mean, Doctor Dryer sends you her regards as well.”

Booth shook his head and exited the office without another word. For a moment he contemplated the interesting ways that life turned out at times, but as he walked down the halls, his mood took a much darker turn and he began to feel angry. Angry that Algente had been able to get his hands on Sweets. Angry that Larson had so carelessly put him in that situation.

Angry at himself for possibly setting all of it in motion in the first place.

 


	11. Chapter 11

Over at the Medico-Legal lab, Brennan walked into the ooky room to find Arastoo examining the bones of both Whitmore and Lessinger, each of which had been laid out onto separate examination tables.

“Any findings for me Mr. Vaziri?” she asked as she pulled on a pair of gloves.

“I’ve X-rayed the bones and cataloged Lessinger’s injuries along with comparing them to the first victim’s injuries in my latest report,” the intern answered. “Also, I have been contemplating the condition of the hyoid bone in both victims again.” Arastoo picked up Whitmore’s hyoid and showed it to Brennan.

“The damage indicates strangulation, to be sure,” he continued. “But then I started to think about the severity of the damage. It is excessive for a simple strangulation and then there is the pattern of the fractures.” The intern placed the bone into Brennan’s cupped hands and she peered at it in silence for a moment before looking up.

“She was throttled,” she said. “The killer shook her repeatedly while she was being strangled.”

“That was my thinking as well,” Arastoo nodded. He then picked up the hyoid bone from Lessinger’s remains. “I also found the same kind of damage in these remains. Judging from the damage, the murderer has a lot of strength in his hands. I gave my analysis to Ms. Montenegro in the hopes that a computer simulation could shed some more light on the manner of their deaths.”

“Good work, Mr. Vaziri,” Brennan said as she sat the bone in her hand back onto the table and examined the rest of the skeleton. Arastoo nodded and returned the bone in his hand to the table in front of him. They both looked over the bones in silence for a few moments before the intern spoke again.

“The murderer…he must have hated these women,” he said. Brennan looked up at him and frowned.

“A murderer’s emotions cannot be read in the bones of his victims,” the anthropologist said. “You should stick with empirical facts, Mr. Vaziri.”

“The killer cut and burned these women over and over again,” Arastoo replied. “And yet all of those wounds were not fatal. The remains also show signs that tell us that these women were restrained, so it would have been a simple thing to kill either of them. But he chose not to. The fracture patterns show the killer throttled these women while facing them. All of these things can be learned empirically.”

The intern placed his hands on the table, careful not to touch the bones.

“The murderer looked into their faces while he killed them,” he continued.  “He was able to watch them die. No…there was much rage in these killings.”

“A hypothesis at best,” Brennan said. “But…it is supported by the known facts.”

“We can only hope that they were not truly aware of what was happening to them while they died,” Arastoo said, shaking his head.

“Why?” Brennan asked. “Whether or not they were conscious would not have affected the outcome.”

“These women spent their final days being tortured and tormented by someone with an evil soul,” Arastoo said. “At least if they were unconscious in the moment of their deaths, they would have been able to depart this world for the next under the guise of a release from suffering as opposed to being fully aware and in pain as evil consumed them.”

Brennan watched Arastoo for a moment while the intern went back to gazing at the remains. Her first thought had been to tell him that it had been a person, not a vague concept who had killed these victims. Instead she hesitated, considering his words.

During her time working with Booth, she had heard a few times about how certain crimes they investigated could only be explained in the context of the perpetrator being filled with evil. It was an idea that Booth had espoused himself either directly or indirectly at times. She didn’t completely understand why he would put so much stock into an idea like that, but she also noticed that Booth still focused his energies into gathering evidence and catching actual flesh-and-blood people as opposed to wasting time on theories or on chasing shadows.

‘ _Perhaps evil is the construct that Booth and others have created to explain that which is unknown to them on an emotional level,’_ she pondered. ‘ _Much like how societies tend to construct a worldview to which they can relate to in order to understand what they observe happening around them.’_

She then looked back down at the bones on the table beside her. Her work both here and in various parts of the world had exposed her to many atrocities that she theorized could fit into Booth’s or Arastoo’s definition of evil. It was then though that she began to question what made one act of murder more prone to being referred to that way as opposed to another.

‘ _Is it the methods used? The motive?’_ she wondered. ‘ _Or is it characteristics of the victims like their age or gender? Or is it even factors like the number of victims involved? If so, what is the measurable difference between one murder or two? Shouldn’t every killing be considered by the same standards, regardless of quantity?’_

Brennan placed a hand next the skull. She had long since understood the concepts of morals and ethics and had, over the years, built up her own code to live by. Still, she adopted these principles under the premise of the value of life and the need for a civilized society to prevail, not out of the irrational fear over the influence of evil.

“By the way, I heard that Doctor Sweets had recently gotten hurt during an investigation,” Arastoo said. “How is he?”

“He is fine,” Brennan nodded. “His injuries were minor and are healing at an acceptable rate.”

“That is good to hear,” the intern replied. “I need to send him my regards. For now, I am glad that evil was not able to consume him the way it did these women. But I suppose he had one important thing on his side.”

“What?” Brennan asked.

“He has all of you here,” Arastoo said. “These women were away from their families and perhaps from those closest to them. It is when we are isolated that evil has the best chance to strike.” He then straightened his posture and moved to leave the room.

“I will look over the remains some more later and have my reports submitted to you by the end of the day,” he said before walking out.

Brennan watched him go and then returned her focus to the bones and her own thoughts.

* * *

 

Over at the Hoover Building, Booth and Sweets sat across from Delaney in one of the interrogation rooms.

After looking over the files of each professor with Sweets the previous evening, Booth asked the psychologist to list the people who he felt they should focus their energies toward.

* * *

 

“ _Honestly, while they all possess the needed intelligence to commit these crimes, I don’t see much that would suggest the kind of rage that was present in these killings,” Sweets had shrugged._

_“What about Delaney?” Booth has asked him. Sweets shook his head._

_“Arrogant and intelligent,” the psychologist said. “But no more that many of his peers. I’m not reading any indications of a potentially violent personality from him.”_

_“Still we might as well focus him for now, right?” Booth asked. “After all, he had the most to lose if these girls decided to make a scandal out of their relationships with him. Anyway you look at it, odd are that he’s hiding something….And I’m thinking that we might have just enough to pry things open….”_

* * *

 

Agents had brought Delaney in and thus far the professor had been surprisingly cooperative.

“Are you sure that you don’t want a lawyer present?” Sweets asked, causing Booth to scowl.

“I don’t need one,” Delaney sniffed. “Waste of time and money. I am more than capable of handling any questions that you two could put to me.”

“Agents are searching your house as we speak,” Booth added. “So if there is anything you’d like to tell us, now would be the time to do it.”

“If you remember correctly, those agents are at my house because I gave them permission to search it,” Delaney retorted. “And the reason I did that is because I want to get this over with and because there is no reason for me to worry about what they might find because there is nothing to find. So if you have questions, you might as well ask them.”

“All right,” Booth said with a smirk. “How about we start with your relationship with both Carol Lessinger and Amy Whitmore.” Delaney rolled his eyes.

“I figured that this would come up at some point once I heard that you had been talking to Olman,” he said. “You law enforcement types do love to wallow in the muck, don’t you?”

“That’s not an answer to my question,” Booth said.

“I wasn’t aware that it was a question,” the professor said with a smirk of his own. “And for your edification, yes I had an intimate relationship with both of them. No, it was not at the same time, and no, neither relationship had any influence in how I evaluated them or their work on an academic level.”

“You admit to sleeping with both of them,” Sweets said, working hard to remain neutral.

“Why not?” Delaney asked nonchalantly. “As I said, it had no effect on their academic standing and all of us were consenting adults. I see no reason why it should matter.”

“Unless of course, they decided that the arrangement they had with you wasn’t enough,” Booth replied. “Maybe they wanted more? Maybe they threatened you with exposure?”

“Please,” the professor sneered. “There was no arrangement. Both of them knew going in that there would be no favoritism on my part as a result of us spending time together.”

“Still both girls saw their grades improve, despite the fact that they did not start out as stellar students,” Booth continued. “Care to explain that?” Delaney leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

“That is faulty reasoning, Agent Booth,” he said. “Both Carol and Amy were just starting their studies at the university when they were in my classes. The sad fact is that many high schools do not prepare students for the rigors of higher education and as a result, they arrive ill-prepared. The fact is though that I prefer the company of semi-intelligent women and while it may all seem like casual sex to you, I encouraged them to try harder in their studies and gave them concrete suggestions on how to improve.” The professor then leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table.

“If you were to take the time to look at their transcripts, you would find that their grades improved across the board and not just in my class,” he said. Delaney then let out a short laugh.

“I think you could stand to take a course in logic,” he told Booth. “I would suggest one of my courses in it, but it hardly seems appropriate now.” The agent frowned and was about to express his disbelief at Delaney giving him a lecture about appropriate behavior when Sweets leaned toward the professor.

“So you’re not just sleeping with them,” the psychologist said. “You’re helping them to become better students.”

“Better learners,” Delaney corrected him. “There is an important difference. Practically anyone with a functioning brain can take notes, memorize facts, and regurgitate them when needed for an exam. I taught those girls to look beyond the next assignment or the next exam.  To go beyond the surface and think critically as they learned. To not simply memorize but to internalize the information they were exposed to. It is the reason why their grades improved the way they did.”

“And yet when we asked you if you knew Amy Whitmore, you acted as if you only knew her on a superficial level as a student in your class,” Sweets replied. “You also implied that she was a strictly average student. If you have nothing to conceal, why did you tell us that?”

“Yeah why?” Booth chimed in, the smirk returning to his face.

“Because once I had heard that Ms. Whitmore had been murdered, I knew that you would suspect me unfairly,” Delaney sighed. “There is a lack of imagination with people like you, and it’s quick and easy to chalk up a murder as a crime of passion. I didn’t tell you the truth because nothing I would have said would have helped you to solve these murders…And besides, what I told you about Ms. Whitmore being average was the truth. She was a pleasant, lively person, but average was as far as her intelligence ran.” Sweets found himself barely able to hide his disgust.

“You do know that lying to the FBI and hiding things during a criminal investigation is a sure-fire way to get arrested for obstruction, don’t you?” Booth asked. Delaney looked as if he was about to reply when Sweets held up his hand slightly.

“You knew that we were investigating her murder,” the therapist said, his voice calm. “And given how sometimes disparate facts, no matter how irrelevant they may seem, can come together to provide an answer to a question, didn’t telling us the truth seem like the right thing to do? You had a relationship with her, wouldn’t you want to do anything you could to help us solve her murder?”

“Do you retain an emotional attachment to every person who consults with you, Doctor Sweets?” Delaney asked. “The fact is, while my relationships with these women were enjoyable at the time, they were not exactly soul stirring. It’s unfortunate that they are dead, but that’s the fact of all of humanity. It does the dead no good when the lives of those still living are dismantled, and that is precisely what I was trying to avoid.”

Booth felt his phone vibrate, and decided that now would be a good time to take a break, lest his or Sweets’ emotions got the better of them. After excusing themselves from the room, Booth turned toward Sweets in the hallway.

“What do you think?” the agent asked.

“Well, he fits a lot of the key points of the profile,” Sweets said. “But….”

“But what?”

“It’s nothing that I can put my finger on at the moment,” the therapist answered. “But all I can say is that I have some…doubts.”

Booth raised his eyebrows in surprise as he pulled out his cell phone. He scanned the brief text that he had received before shoving the device back into his pocket.

“You might want to reconsider those doubts,” Booth said. “That was the agents at Delaney’s house….they found another body.”


	12. Chapter 12

Booth drove up to Delaney’s house, a modest but comfortable-looking place out in the suburbs, and parked his car across the road. The first thing he saw as he walked up to the house were FBI techs coming around from the backyard. The agent walked to the back of the house to find Brennan, Cam and Hodgins crouching down around a skeleton which had been partially unearthed in the garden.

“Evidence of adipose tissue in the soil led us here,” Cam explained as Booth looked down at them.

“Is it another student?” Booth asked.

“The victim is female, in her late teens early twenties,” Brennan answered. “And cause of death does appear to be strangulation again due to the condition of the hyoid.”

“Same as the other two,” Cam nodded.

“We won’t know much more for sure until we can examine the remains at the lab,” Brennan added.

“Any ideas about how long the body’s been here?” the agent asked as he took notes.

“Given the plant activity around the body, I’d say no more than a year,” Hodgins replied. “Hopefully the samples I’m collecting will give us a more definite time line.”

“All right, you squints just keep…doing whatever it is that you do,” Booth said, backing up. “I’m going to go check on things in the house.” Booth walked back to the front and went inside.

The first thing that made an impression on him was the books. Rows of bookcases were lined up against almost every wall except in the kitchen and bathroom. Each bookcase was stuffed full of books of all sorts: hardcovers and paperbacks, old dusty tomes and the newest bestsellers, along with numerous non-fiction and textbooks. Booth scanned the titles, but other than the historical texts and some literature, most of it was unfamiliar to him.

Putting aside the books, there was little there that gave the place a lived-in feel. There were no pieces of artwork on the walks, only a couple of framed of photographs, and little in the way of knick-knacks strewn about.

‘ _Nothing here that explains why he’s got a skeleton buried in his backyard,’_ Booth mused.

“Agent Booth?”

Booth whirled around to see a pair of techs standing in behind him, each of them holding objects that had been bagged as evidence.

“We think you should see these,” one of them said. Booth peered over at the bags and when he saw what they contained, he grimaced and nodded at them.

“Make sure those get to the Jeffersonian once you’re done with them,” Booth told them as they walked away. The agent then resumed walking around the house and started to think that he should have brought Sweets with him to get a better sense of Delaney from his living space.

‘ _Delaney admitted to sleeping with those girls, so what could have driven him to want to kill? Was it something else? Something career related, like….?’_

Suddenly Booth was struck by a new hunch. It was a bit of a long shot, but he knew that it would bother him until he checked up on it. The agent pulled out his phone and searched his call history until he found the number he was looking for. He then pressed a button to dial it and listened to it ring until he got an answer.

“Terry Lipton? It’s Agent Booth again. Listen, does Delaney keep copies of his students’ papers or exams? Good. I’m going to be sending some people over to your office….”

* * *

 

About an hour and a half later, Booth walked into the observation room next to one of the interrogation rooms at the Hoover Building with a stack of files. Inside was Sweets, sipping at a coffee and watching Delaney through the glass. The psychologist nodded at Booth as he entered.

“Anything new?” Booth asked him, tilting his head toward the professor.

“Not really,” Sweets answered. “He hasn’t said much other than to ask when he’ll be able to leave and to insist that he still doesn’t need a lawyer.”

“I’ve got Angela looking over the crime scene photos,” Booth said. “Hopefully she can give us an ID on the victim.” The agent handed Sweets a file which the therapist began to flip through.

“In the meantime, I think that we’ve got plenty of other things to focus on,” Booth added. “Techs found a bottle of prescription sedatives in Delaney’s medicine cabinet. They’re on the list that Cam gave me of sedatives that were found in Whitmore’s and Lessinger’s systems. Also, they found a collection of silk ties in one of the dressers. The labels match the Italian manufacturer that Hodgins mentioned.”

“So same as the fibers found around the victims’ throats,” Sweets said as he continued to scan through the file. “So now the important question is: who is this other victim? Something must be significant about her.”

“How so?” Booth asked.

“Well she was buried in a garden behind Delaney’s house,” Sweets said. “The other victims were disposed of in relatively remote or isolated areas and were simply dumped, not buried. The fact that this one was suggests that there is something different about her. Something perhaps more personal. Chances are, she was the first victim, so it’s likely that there is some kind of connection between her and the killer.”

“Right, something that made him cross the line into killing,” Booth said, taking the file back from Sweets.

“Exactly,” Sweets said, holding out his arms for a moment before stuffing his hands back into his pockets. “More than likely, the murderer had more than one stressor affecting him at the time and somehow this victim proved to be the breaking point. These subsequent killings could be a way to re-live that original murder.”

Booth’s cell phone buzzed, and he pulled it out to answer it.

“Booth?...ok thanks Angela,” he said before snapping it shut. The agent pulled out another file from the stack under his arm.

“Angela was able to ID the victim,” he said. “Sara Perkins. Missing for about a year and also one of Delaney’s students.”

“You knew that it was her in Delaney’s garden?” Sweets asked, surprised. “How?”

“Call it a hunch,” Booth said, his expression grim. “Here’s the thing: I’ve been talking to some old classmates of hers. Turns out that Sara also had an affair with Delaney and had talked to Olman about it, asking him not to tell anyone. Apparently, that is where Olman got the idea for the article in the first place.”

“That does tie in with the other two victims,” Sweets nodded. “But if Delaney wasn’t worried about the other relationship he had had with his students, what was the motive for him to murder any of them?”

A knock at the door interrupted them, and Booth opened it up to find one of the junior agents in the hall with another set of files for him. The man left after handing them to him, and Booth studied the papers in front of him for a few minutes silently.

“What is it?” Sweets asked as Booth finally began to close the files.

“You know that motive you were talking about,” Booth said. “I think we just found it.”

* * *

 

“Just how long do you tend to keep me here, Agent Booth?” Delaney scowled as Booth and Sweets walked back into the interrogation room. “I think that I have been more than a little cooperative and if you have nothing pertinent to discuss, then I would like to go now.”

“Actually we do have some more things to discuss,” Booth said as he and Sweets sat down. “Like how you seem to have underestimated the collective intelligence of the FBI and the Jeffersonian.”

“I seriously doubt that I have,” Delaney retorted. “But what are you talking about?”

“We found the body of one of your students buried in the garden in your backyard,” Booth continued, placing some photographs of the crime scene and of Perkins in front of him. “Sara Perkins. Does her name ring a bell?”

“What?” the professor almost squeaked, growing pale. “That’s…that’s not possible. There must be some kind of mistake.”

“No mistake,” Booth said. “We know that she was one of your students and we have reason to believe that you had an “arrangement” with you similar to the one you had with Lessinger and Whitmore. Anything to say to that?”

“I…I did know her intimately, yes,” Delaney said, struggling to regain his composure. “But I didn’t kill her. I told you before, I had no reason to.”

“Not even if she threatened to tell the deans about the plagiarism that you had allowed to slip by when she was your student?” Booth asked. “That kind of thing could ruin you, couldn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?” Delaney demanded. Booth pulled out a series of papers and laid them out in a row.

“These are four papers that Perkins handed into you,” Booth said. “It’s our understanding that you read through all of these papers yourself.”

“Yes, of course,” the professor said. “Those papers and the exams are worth sixty-five percent of a student’s final grade for the course. As a result, I go over them myself and leave the homework assignments and the pop quizzes to my TA to grade.”

“Our agents went through the student papers that you had kept on file,” Booth said. “All of these papers that were turned in under Sara’s name were exact copies of papers that had been turned in previously by other students in your classes.”

“What?” Delaney spluttered. Booth slapped down another stack of papers in front of him.

“Our agents compared them,” the agent said. “They are the same, word-for-word. Maybe you could miss one of them…but all four seems unlikely. Unless you had just decided to turn a blind eye to all this. So what happened? Did the relationship go sour and she threatened you? Is that why you killed her?”

“No, no that did not happen,” Delaney insisted. “That never happened.” Booth then pulled out more photographs from his file folders.

“We also have fibers from around the victims’ throats that match the ties that we found in your bedroom dresser,” he said. “Along with prescription sedatives that match the ones used to drug both Whitmore and Lessinger.” Booth paused and leaned toward the professor, gathering the papers and photos into a pile as he did so.

“So what happened? After Perkins you found that it was easy to kill someone?” the agent said. “That way if any of your “casual relationships” gave you too much trouble, you could just eliminate the problem.”

“No, no, you’re just twisting the facts to suit your theories,” the professor replied, his voice starting to crack.

“Then how do you explain the body in your garden?” Booth said.

“Someone must have planted it there,” Delaney said. “I took a vacation not too long ago, and before that I went on a trip to Italy to confer with some people who had written a series of philosophical texts. Someone could have done it while I was gone.”

He then turned to Sweets, his eyes almost pleading.

“You believe me, don’t you?” Delaney asked Sweets. “I know that you’re different from him. You understand that while I might not be perfect, I am not the kind of person who would do this. You know that, don’t you?”

Sweets stared into Delaney’s eyes for a long time, his expression unreadable. Booth looked over and saw that the psychologist had lapsed into one of his so-called “creepy stares” and was about to ask him about it when Sweets suddenly stood up and walked out of the room. Booth leapt to his feet and moved to follow him. Once they were in the hallway, Booth stormed over to him.

“What was that about?” Booth asked, irritation thick in his tone.

“He didn’t do it,” Sweets replied softly. “He’s not lying. I’m sure of it.”

“Sweets!” Booth exclaimed. “I need more than your gut feeling here.”

“It doesn’t fit the profile,” Sweets argued. “The murderer we’re looking for is intelligent, meticulous, and plans ahead. Why would someone like that stash a body at his house and then invite us to search for it?”

“Maybe because he’s arrogant and thinks that he can outsmart all of us,” Booth shot back. “We’ve seen this before, you know? Criminals who get cocky because they think that they’ve committed the perfect crime.”

“The murderer is probably arrogant, but he is not stupid,” Sweets said. “Neither is Delaney. I don’t think that he’s our killer. We need to keep looking.”

“So you want me to just ignore the body in the garden, the fact that he slept with all three victims and all of the other evidence because of a conclusion you reached with your Jedi mind tricks?” Booth asked. He walked over to Sweets, grinding his jaw as he went.

“What is this about, Sweets?” Booth said. “You didn’t mention any of these doubts before we went in there, and you wait until I throw everything we have at him to say anything. I can’t trust you if you don’t trust me enough to tell me what’s going on. First that whole thing with Larson and the Algente case and now this…How can I trust you if you won’t tell me what’s going on inside your head?”

Sweets’ mouth fell open in shock at first, but his demeanor swiftly changed as he then pressed his lips into a thin line and glared at the agent. Booth then knew that he had touched a nerve, but said nothing as Sweets turned away to walk down the hall.

“Then I suppose you just can’t trust me,” Sweets said as he walked away.

 


	13. Chapter 13

An hour later, Booth was sitting in his office, studying the case files in front of him.

After Sweets had left, Booth had gone back in to talk to Delaney, and the professor finally broke down and asked for a lawyer. By that point, however, Booth had decided to take him into custody. The agent made the arrest and after completing the necessary paperwork, he went back to his office to collect his thoughts.

He still felt some annoyance at Sweets for how the psychologist had dismissed their one viable suspect out of hand, but the more he thought about it, the more he began to reconsider Delaney as the murderer.

‘ _Sweets…he’s usually not wrong about these things. Not when he’s this sure.’_

Booth then thought about Delaney himself and the way that the evidence had neatly presented itself. It was true that Booth did not believe in coincidences within a murder investigation, but he also did not believe in things being too neatly tied up either. Thus, once he had finished up his latest report for his supervisors, Booth pulled out all of the files relating to the case and pored over them, searching for something he might have missed.

‘ _No matter what Sweets says or how sure he is, we need more to go on,’_ he mused. ‘ _We need a lead…and some concrete evidence to back it up.’_

Booth smiled ruefully. In that moment, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was starting to channel Brennan’s way of seeing the world with her consistent need for evidence before action. Over the years that he had known her, he had seen slow, subtle changes in the way that the anthropologist approached an investigation along with life in general, but during that time, he hadn’t thought much about how she could be influencing his own evolution.

The agent ended up looking over the files for almost two hours, but hadn’t been able to find anything beyond the merest wisps of possible leads and it frustrated him. Deep down, he knew that what he needed was a fresh perspective, and he wished that he could look over all of this with Sweets.

“ _Then I suppose you just can’t trust me….”_

Booth frowned and pushed the files on his desk away from him, disgusted. A part of him regretted saying what he did to Sweets, but an equally large part of him felt irritated if not a bit insulted at the fact that Sweets did not trust him enough to share his thoughts about Delaney or to talk about the Algente case.

“… _I suppose you just can’t trust me….”_

The frown on Booth’s face deepened. He couldn’t deny that there had been issues in the past when it came to trusting Sweets. The psychologist had a very different approach to therapy from Wyatt, and Sweets himself was markedly different from the types of people whom Booth considered close friends in the past. As a result, it wasn’t always easy for him to know how to handle Sweets or to get a good enough read on him to know whether or not he could be trusted.

The agent then sighed. He knew that if he was honest with himself, he would have to admit that Sweets had proven that he could be trusted more than once over the years that they had known each other. Thus, Booth hated the current situation they were in with Sweets feeling like he wasn’t trusted and him wondering why the therapist didn’t trust him.

Booth stood up, put his suit jacket back on, and left his office. He still had a job to do, so for now, brooding was only counterproductive.

* * *

 

“Hey big man,” Cam smiled as she saw Booth enter her office. “Doctor Brennan is busy going over some things with Arastoo, so it will be a while before she is available.”

“Fine,” Booth nodded, distracted. “How about you? You got anything for me?” The pathologist took in Booth’s demeanor for a moment before answering.

“Nothing good for you, I’m afraid,” she said. “I checked on those sedatives that the FBI sent over here. They are a match, but….”

“But?” Booth echoed.

“Well every manufacturer of a drug has the same basic ingredients, but sometimes the composition or formulation is slightly different,” Cam continued. “The sedatives I found in the victims’ systems were from the name brand while the pills from Delaney’s house were the generic versions.”

“So not a match,” Booth said.

“Yes, but, it’s not uncommon for doctors to switch patients from a name brand drug to its generic as a way to save the patient money,” Cam said.  “So I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the sedatives used came from Delaney just yet.”

“But I can rule out the ties you sent me as the murder weapon,” Hodgins said as he walked in. “Angela scanned the ties and ran them through her color and pattern matching program to compare them with the colors and patterns she extrapolated from the fibers found around the victims’ throats. None of them were a match.”

“So other than it being an Italian tie, we’re back to square one on the murder weapon,” Booth said, his shoulders slumping slightly.

“Not exactly,” Hodgins smiled. “I did some more research.” The entomologist then walked over to Cam’s computer, his fingers swiftly dancing along the keyboard until an advertisement for ties appeared on the monitor.

“A tie matching all of the parameters in Angela’s analysis is sold as part of a set of three from the manufacturer,” Hodgins said. “Two of the three ties are in the batch that the Bureau sent, and the only way to get that third tie is to buy the entire set. It is not sold separately.”

“So more than likely, our murder weapon is that missing third tie,” Booth replied.

“Yes,” Hodgins nodded as he pointed at the screen. “This tie here, to be exact, is what you are looking for. Oh and in case any of you didn’t notice, King of the Lab.”

The entomologist grinned again before walking out of the room, still celebrating his personal victory.

“Everything we have points to Delaney,” Booth mumbled as he leaned against a wall. “But at the same time, what we have either casts doubt on him or just doesn’t add up with everything else we’ve got. It’s like it’s not him…but he’s still at the center of all this.”

Booth rubbed his eyes, and Cam became concerned when she sensed the tension in that gesture. She swiveled her office chair to better face him.

“Sorry that we can’t be more help, but we will keep looking,” she said. “In the meantime, why don’t you try talking to Sweets?”

“Sweets?” Booth said, moving his hand away from his eyes.

“Well, Doctor Brennan is going to be busy for a while, and I know that sometimes Sweets has helped you get some new ideas when you’ve hit a wall in a case,” Cam said. “He is still working with you on the case, isn’t he?”

“At this point, I don’t know what’s going on with him,” Booth replied.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Is he ok?”

“I don’t know, and that’s the problem,” Booth huffed. “He won’t tell me anything about what happened to him while I was on vacation, and now this case….he’s sure that Delaney isn’t the murderer.”

“Do you think he’s right?” Cam inquired.

“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but a part of me thinks so, yeah,” he said. “You know about how good he is at spotting lies and reading people and all that. But it’s like he won’t work with me and tell me this stuff when I need to know it. And now…we sort of had a disagreement and I don’t know if he’s going to be willing to finish up this case with me.”

Booth turned to watch the activity in the rest of the lab, and Cam stood up to stand beside him. The two of them stayed that way silently for a moment before the pathologist spoke.

“I’ll admit that I am not an expert on reading Sweets,” she said. “In fact, I’d venture that none of us are. But from what I’ve seen from him over the years, he’s a lot like you in certain ways, and I know you.” Booth turned his face to look at her, and Cam met his gaze.

“These are never just cases for you,” she said. “It’s about protecting people, setting things right, and getting justice for the victims and their families. And I am pretty sure that those are some of the same things that drive Sweets. Which is why I think that if you just ask him to help you finish this case, he’ll do it.”

“That’s it? Just ask him?” Booth replied. “You seem pretty confident of that.”

“That’s because he’s also your friend, Seeley, not just your co-worker,” she said. “All that other stuff going on...that will have to be between you two. Believe me that we all want to help him as much as he will let us, but he’s not always willing to let us in. In this case, you’ll probably have to make the first move.”

“Geez, why do you squints have to make everything so complicated?” Booth grumbled.

“That’s part of dealing with complicated people,” Cam smirked at him. “Not all of us can be as straightforward as you and have everything figured out.” The pathologist then got a more somber look on her face.

“Talk to him,” she said. “I know that Sweets is not the type of person who would toss his friends aside over a petty argument. He may be slow to make friends, real friends…but I’m betting that he’s also the kind who won’t let them go very easily either…and I, for one, am grateful that that’s the case.”

“Thanks Camille,” Booth grinned at her as he started to walk away. “And hey, if you see Bones, tell her I’ll be by to pick her up in a little while.”

Cam thought about reminding him to not call her Camille, but decided instead to silently wish him luck.

Both with the case and with Sweets.

* * *

 

“What do you want, Lance?” Daisy demanded, her arms crossed over her chest. “I’m super busy with research for my dissertation right now.”

Sweets cringed inwardly at her tone. After walking away from Booth earlier that day, he had spent hours burying himself in other work in his office and had not come home until late evening. The minute he had arrived, he had texted her, begging her to come over. A part of him was still stunned that she agreed to do it. But right now, he was afraid of what would happen next as he took in her angry posture as she stood in the middle of his front room.

“Daisy I…” Sweets mumbled. “I know that I’ve been cancelling a lot and spending a lot of hours at the office here lately, and I…I’m sorry.”

The intern’s arms dropped to her sides, but the irritated look remained, causing Sweets to swallow hard.

“I know that you’re busy,” she said. “We both are. But Lancelot, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t see or even talk to each other. You never tell me anything about what is going on at work or with you. When we do get together, you just sit there and let me do all of the talking.”

“I know,” Sweets said quietly as he sank down onto the couch. Daisy hesitated, but eventually went over to sit down beside him.

“I haven’t talked about work much because…I wouldn’t know where to begin,” he continued. “There’s been so much of it lately. It’s all starting to blend together inside my brain like some kind of murky soup. I can keep it all straight and neatly separated while I’m at work, but the minute I come home and take off the suit…it all becomes a jumbled mess that just churns around inside my head.”

Daisy reached over and took one of his hands into hers.

“Maybe you’re just tired,” she said. “You have been working a lot of hours and fatigue can disrupt a person’s ability to concentrate and keep one’s thoughts focused.”

“I am tired,” Sweets nodded. “But it’s more than that. It’s more than a lack of sleep or insufficient time to unwind.”  The psychologist paused and looked away from her and into his lap. Daisy’s features softened even more and she reached for his other hand, clasping both of them into hers.

“I’m worried that soon, I won’t be able to do this anymore,” he continued. “Sometimes, I’m in the middle of things at work, and it’s as if the work is taking over. It’s like, all I am is this shell who allows himself to become the people who I’m profiling, and I lose a little part of…whoever I am these days. All of these dark twisted minds that I get inside…I start to understand them. I know how they think…and even worse, I know _why_ they think in the ways that they do.”

“But you’re not like them,” Daisy insisted. “You’re my Lancelot. You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever known. You really do live up to your name, Sweets.”

“Do I really?” Sweets snapped, his face contorting in anger. “Or is that just who you want me to be? What others want to see in me?”

Upon seeing the hurt in Daisy’s eyes, he realized how harsh his tone had been. He then pulled his hands and way and let his head droop as he buried his face into his palms.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “For all of it. I….” Sweets shook his head and ran his hands down his face, letting them fall into his lap. Daisy leaned over and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“I know that you are still a kind, decent man,” she said. “And you know that, just like Doctor Brennan, I do not make assertions without evidence. I know it because you still have your practice where you help agents with therapy. I know it because you worry about your friends all the time and are always wanting to make sure that they are happy. I know it because of that time when we were walking to the Diner and you stopped to make sure that woman you saw crying in front of the furniture store was all right. You’re still my Lancelot. You just need to rest and take a break from criminal investigations.”

Sweets looked over at her, his eyes weary, but Daisy persisted in her smile.

“Sometimes, when I’m working with Doctor Brennan, we get the chance to look at some older remains,” she continued. “I mean at least five hundred years old. And she gets excited, which is really no surprise. I mean how could you not get excited by remains like that? But even though she gets excited by things like that, I don’t think she’s tired of working with Agent Booth on murder cases. I think she’s just happy to spend some time going back to the reason she says made her become an anthropologist.”

Daisy squeezed him and laid her head onto his shoulder.

“And maybe that’s all you need to do too,” she said. “Do more of what got you into psychology in the first place.”

Sweets put his arms around her and held her tightly. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that that was all that was going on, but that did not stop the doubts from raging inside him. No matter how much he wanted to believe her or how much he thought that she could be right, Sweets found himself unable to fully commit to that idea.

“Hey, I’m not really that hungry,” she said. “Why don’t we just whip up a couple of sandwiches and then go to bed.” Sweets gulped.

“Daisy…I love you…but I don’t know if…if I can….”

“It’s all right,” she said tightening her hold on him. “I know that you’re tired. All I want to do tonight is hold my brave Lancelot for a while.”

 

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

The next morning, Booth sighed as he hesitated outside Sweets’ office door. The agent had spent much of the morning catching up on paperwork and office emails and was now ready to resume work on the triple homicide that he was facing. Earlier, he had contacted Sweets’ secretary, Becky, and had asked her to let him know when the therapist would be available. She called Booth about ten minutes before she went to lunch and that all led to where he was now: standing outside the psychologist’s door, trying to figure out how to approach this talk with Sweets.

Booth scowled a moment later and knocked on the door. He had never been one for elaborate apologies or for over-thinking the relationships he had with those closest to him, preferring to meet any difficulties head-on and with minimal complications. Upon hearing Sweets acknowledge him; the agent walked in and found the psychologist sitting in his chair across the couch with a notepad on his lap. Sweets stopped writing and looked up as Booth walked in.

“Agent Booth, good morning,” Sweets nodded, his tone neutral.

“Hiya, Sweets,” Booth replied, sitting down on the couch. There was a moment of tense silence until Booth cleared his throat.

“Ok look, I’ve got Delaney in custody,” Booth said. “And right now, everything we’ve got points to him being the murderer. But…something isn’t right. It’s too perfect. Too neat. Just like you said.” The agent then leaned toward Sweets.

“I want to know what happened to these women,” he continued. “Whitmore, Lessinger, Perkins…they deserve justice and to have their murderer put away. If it’s Delaney, then fine, case closed. But I want to be sure. Those women do not deserve anything less than the absolute truth. And I’m asking you, please, help me get to that truth. Help me put their killer away.”

Sweets stared at him for a full minute without saying a word, and Booth was starting to wonder if the therapist was going to turn down his request. But soon Sweets’ features softened, and Booth was able to detect a glint of wistfulness in his eyes.

“All right,” Sweets said quietly. “What do you need me to do?”

* * *

 

The two of them ended up moving to Booth’s office and studying all of the files from the case there. They mainly worked in silence as they pored over everything for over two hours.

“Maybe we should be looking at Delaney as less of a suspect and more of a connection,” Sweets suddenly said. “In fact, he may even be another victim of the murderer’s rage.”

“What do you mean?” Booth said, as he leaned back behind his desk. “You’re thinking that the killer is targeting Delaney?”

“It makes sense,” Sweets nodded. “We know that the killer is intelligent and methodical. He plans ahead so that he doesn’t get caught.”

“And yet he leaves behind enough evidence to implicate Delaney,” Booth added.

“Exactly,” Sweets said. “The murderer wants to lead us in that direction. It is possible that Delaney is the true source of his rage.”

“So why not kill Delaney?” Booth asked. “Why kill these women instead?”

“I don’t know,” Sweets answered. “Perhaps Delaney has some kind of leverage over him or Delaney’s death might be detrimental to the killer in some way. Either way, I think the key has to be in the first victim.”

Sara Perkins,” Booth replied. “Right, because it was something involving her that drove this guy over the edge.”

“Yes,” Sweets said. “We need to find some other connection between her and Delaney. Someone else who might have wanted her dead and Delaney implicated for it.”

“And I think I know just where to start looking,” Booth said as he picked up his phone.

* * *

 

An hour later, Booth and Sweets were sitting in chairs in Booth’s office across from Sharon Birlew.

“You found Sara, didn’t you?” Birlew said, looking into her lap. “Everybody on campus is talking about it. She’s the one who you found in that creep Delaney’s backyard, isn’t she?”

“Sharon, we need to know more about what was going on in Sara’s life before she disappeared,” Sweets said softly.

“I don’t know how much I can tell you,” Birlew shrugged. “I knew her better than a lot of people, but she still kept to herself for the most part. Sara, she was really committed to the whole college thing. She was always hitting the books instead of going out. Her idea of fun on the weekends was taking a few hours off from studying and grabbing a pizza with friends.”

“Was Sara having problems in her classes?” Booth asked.

“A little at first,” she replied. “But then she got serious and her grades got better.” Birlew lifted her head.

“I know what you’re thinking: that Sara slept with Delaney in order to get help with her grades,” she said. “But it wasn’t like that. Sara never cheated. That’s something she would never do. I…I just think that she spent time with Delaney because she was still getting over her old boyfriend, Terry.”

“Terry?” Booth said. “Terry Lipton?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Birlew said, confused. “How did you know?”

“When did she know Terry Lipton?” Sweets asked.

“She…she met him during her senior year in high school,” she said. “She was working as a volunteer at one of those places that helps people learn to read and stuff. Terry was also helping out there and the two of them hit it off. Sure, there was an age difference, but Sara liked older guys and she was over eighteen. Anyway, things were good between them for a while, but then, I don’t know. She even applied to this college as a way to keep seeing him, but things fell apart and they broke up not long after she started attending classes. After they broke up, that’s when Sara got all gung-ho about her studies and making changes in her life.”

Birlew swung her legs back and forth and looked back down into her lap.

“After she disappeared, I stayed around,” she said. “Hoping that she would come back. Hoping that maybe I’d figure things out. But now that I know she’s dead…I guess all of that seems kind of pointless now.” She then sighed and looked back up at them.

“I’ll try to help you anyway I can, and I hope that you nail Delaney and whoever else is behind all this,” she said. “But…and I know this sounds bad…I can’t help but think that it’s not going to really matter in the end, you know?”

Booth and Sweets glanced at each other, their eyes meeting for a second before returning their gaze toward Birlew. Neither of them wanted to say it, but both of them wondered if maybe a part of them agreed with her.

* * *

 

After spending another thirty minutes talking to Birlew, Booth and Sweets decided to move everything over to the conference room. They gathered up their files, papers, and notes and spread them out onto the table. Deciding that lunch was in order, Sweets went off to order some Chinese take-out while Booth went back to his office so he could confer with Brennan and Cam at the Jeffersonian via webcam. By the time the agent was done and had returned to the conference room, Sweets was arranging cartons of food for the two of them on the table. They sat down and ate in silence for a few minutes before Booth started to speak.

“So I was able to pull Delaney’s medical records,” he said as he picked up a carton of fried rice. “Apparently he had been on the name brand sedative for a while before the doctor switched it at Delaney’s request. I was able to check with the local pharmacy and found out that they kept records with signatures every time Delaney’s prescription was filled. Check out the signatures.” The agent nudged a file Sweets’ way and the psychologists picked it up and flipped through it.

“The signatures are different,” Sweets said as he scanned it. “It’s Delaney’s name every time, but the hand writing changes.”

“That’s right,” Booth said. “Also, he has a prescription that Cam says is usually used for arthritis. I talked to Bones about it, and according to her, there is no way that Delaney would have the strength to throttle the victims the way that they were given his condition.”

“So it had to be someone with greater physical prowess than Delaney,” Sweets said around a mouthful of egg roll.

“Yeah, and guess what?” the agent responded. “It turns out that Terry Lipton used to weight train and was on the wrestling team both in high school and for the first couple of years he was in college. My guess is that he kept himself in shape after that.”

“It all makes sense,” Sweets nodded. “Lipton could have doctored Perkins’ papers since he would have access to them, and given how Delaney treats him like a personal assistant, it’s possible that Lipton had access to Delaney’s personal things, possibly even his house.”

“Problem is though, we don’t have any hard evidence,” Booth frowned. “I mean, sure we have a motive tying him to Perkins’ death, jealousy over her sleeping with Delaney, but there’s nothing connecting him to Whitmore or Lessinger other than Delaney himself. So why kill them? I just don’t know if we have enough for a warrant so that we can look for more evidence.”

“True,” Sweets said thoughtfully. “Although, I am wondering if there is more to it than just the fact that Perkins slept with Delaney. Something tells me that there has to be something more. But what?”

Booth nodded as he chewed on a piece of crab rangoon. He could sense Sweets’ frustration, and shared it. The agent knew that Brennan and everyone else at the lab did not have much more to offer as far as revealing who the murderer was, so it was up to them to find some way to tie all of this together.

The agent watched as Sweets scooped up some sesame chicken with his chopsticks. Even though the two of them were working smoothly as a team within this investigation, he could still sense the tension lingering between himself and Sweets. It had also become clear to him that Cam was right and that he would have to make the first move with Sweets in all this, but booth found that it still irritated him to some extent.

‘ _Sweets is the one refusing help and cutting himself off,’_ he grumbled to himself. ‘ _So why am I having to be the one to reach out and make amends? For all his talk about working through feelings and all that, he sure is adept at avoiding any discussion of his own.’_

Booth frowned and snatched up a pot-sticker. He thought back to the times when Sweets did try to divulge more of himself. Usually it was related to April or Daisy or some other traumatic event that he had endured. Booth could tell during all of those times that it had taken a lot for Sweets actually saying anything to him about what was in his mind and heart. But the more he thought about it, the more Booth started to detect a pattern.

‘ _Here recently, he’s been clamming up more and more, and letting less of himself out,’_ the agent mused. ‘ _Especially after that whole thing when Taffet got killed right in front of him.’_ It was then that a new and disconcerting thought occurred to him.

‘ _Is this some kind of trend?’ And is he getting worse?’_ he wondered. ‘ _What if there is something wrong and that thing with Larson just pushed him closer to the edge.’_

Booth gulped down the rest of his pot-sticker and picked up a glass of water to wash it down. He tried to study Sweets as best he could without being noticed. He wasn’t looking forward to confronting Sweets over all this, and was more than willing to put it aside until they wrapped up the case.

Besides, there was one last errand that Booth needed to attend to before he could go over things with Sweets.

Instead for now, Booth decided to go back to looking over the papers in front of him, hoping that inspiration would strike.

‘ _If it’s not just about Perkins, then what else is it?’_ he thought to himself. ‘ _What else is so important to Lipton?’_

Booth reached over for a fortune cookie, but he hesitated when something Lipton said came back to him.

“ _Yes, my doctorate in philosophy…with all that going on, there’s not a lot of time for me to really get to know any of the people in his classes…”_

“Sweets, we need to talk to him again,” Booth said suddenly, sitting upright.

“Who? Lipton?” Sweets asked, confused.

“No, Delaney,” Booth answered. “It’s just like you said, he’s the key to this all along. And I’m thinking that he’s the answer we’ve been looking for as to Lipton’s motives.”

The two of them stood and Booth gathered up the files while Sweets threw away the empty paper cartons. Once the table was cleared, Booth reached over and placed a hand on Sweets’ shoulder.

“I have a hunch,” the agent said. “And if our talk with Delaney pans out the way I think it will, I think I’ve got a way to approach Lipton. Are you up for a little subterfuge?”

Booth clasped Sweets’ shoulder and was happy to see the psychologist’s eyes light up in response.

“What did you have in mind?” Sweets asked with a slight smile.


	15. Chapter 15

“Of course, I am happy to help you however I can, Agent Booth,” Lipton said as he sat down onto a chair in the conference room. “But I’m not entirely sure why you wanted to meet me here instead of at the university.”

Booth and Sweets sat down next to each other in chairs across from the TA. They had called Lipton over to the Hoover Building about an hour ago, and while he was hesitant at first, Lipton eventually made his way over. The psychologist slouched back in his chair while Booth spread some files in front of him.

“We need to go over a few more things,” Booth said. “Just some details that need clearing up.” Sweets shook his head and Booth glanced over at him before returning his focus to Lipton.

“Had you noticed that Sara Perkins had copied other students’ papers?” the agent asked. “And that Delaney had either ignored or missed the plagiarism?”

“Um no,” Lipton said, bolting upright in his chair. “She had? Wow, I…I guess she didn’t seem like the type.”

“You knew her then?” Booth asked.

“Yeah, somewhat,” Lipton said sheepishly. “We used to date on and off not long before she attended the university. Things fizzled out after that. Still, I guess you never really know people, do you? But there was no way for me to know what she was doing. Doctor Delaney read and graded the papers. I just filed them.”

“Is there any way that she could have gotten access to those files?” Booth asked. “Perhaps from you or Delaney himself?”

“No way that she would have gotten it from me,” Lipton insisted. “I can assure you of that. Not so sure about Delaney though. He usually left me to work on my own, but it’s not like I’m in my office all the time and he does have a key. So it’s hard to say what he might have done.”

Sweets sighed loudly and slumped down even more in his chair while tapping his fingertips against the table. Booth turned to glare at him.

“I’m afraid that you’ll have to excuse Doctor Sweets,” Booth said as he looked between the psychologist and Lipton. “He has his own theories about these crimes, and he is having a hard time letting go of them.”

“I’m just saying that we shouldn’t put all of our energy into Doctor Delaney,” Sweets said. “He doesn’t fit the profile and besides…he cared too much.”

“What?” Booth asked, incredulous.

“Whoever killed these women had an intense hatred for them, Agent Booth,” Sweets insisted. “Doctor Delaney does not seem to have those kinds of personality traits and behaviors. He’s too sensitive.”

“Sensitive?” Lipton asked, open-mouthed. “Haven’t you met him?”

“Oh of course there is the veneer of academia about him,” the therapist continued. “That’s to be expected. He does have a doctorate and is respected in his field, after all. But I suspect that underneath all of that is a sort of tragic romantic soul. The kind that is always searching, always hoping for the idealized kind of relationship.”

“Right,” Booth said, rolling his eyes. “And he decides to look for it by sleeping with teenage college students. Likes he’s really going to find anything meaningful there.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Sweets shrugged.

“Let’s stay on point,” Booth said. “Like with the facts we know and the evidence we have to work with. I’m sure that Mr. Lipton here doesn’t want us to waste his time.”

“It’s ok. I’m good,” Lipton assured them. “I actually don’t have as much to do these days what with…well considering the situation and all.”

“Yes, but I think we should move on,” Booth said.

“All right, all right,” Sweets said, holding up his hands in surrender. “But I still say that this is going to turn out to be a dead end. And you’ll see what I mean when I go over some other leads with you later.”

“Hey, I’m the agent in charge of this investigation,” Booth said as he turned back toward Lipton. “So I’ll decide when to drop a lead, all right? Now, Mr. Lipton, you’ve been working as Delaney’s TA for a while now, right? Did your work for him ever extend outside of the campus grounds?”

“Sometimes, yeah,” Lipton said, his voice taking on a harsher tone. “I’d tell him that I was going somewhere for lunch and then he would ‘ _suggest_ ’ that I do some errands for him while I was out. He called it being efficient. I called it treating me like his personal slave. And he knew it.”

“It’s amazing that you tolerated that,” Booth nodded. “I know that I wouldn’t have been able to. By the way, did any of these errands ever take you to Delaney’s house?”

“Occasionally yes,” the TA said.

“I know that this is going to seem like an odd question, but I need you to answer as best you can, because we need corroboration on this,” Booth said, leaning forward. “Did you happen to notice if Delaney had an elaborate necktie collection?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah I did actually,” Lipton nodded eagerly. “In fact he had a bunch of ties from Italy that he brought back from one of his many trips there.”

“Why are Italian ties so important?” Sweets said, a bored expression on his face.

“Because that’s the murder weapon,” Lipton said, exasperated. He then saw how Booth and Sweets were looking at him and sank down in his chair and coughed.

“I mean, that’s what I gather from what you’ve guys had said and what I’ve seen on the news,” Lipton said. “All of the reporters have been saying that the victims were strangled.”

“They had,” Booth nodded. “But none of those reporters knew anything about the ties. That detail was kept from the press. So there’s no way you could have heard about them…and certainly not the part that an Italian tie was the murder weapon.”

“I…I…” Lipton stammered.

“Before you say anything else, you should know a couple of things,” Booth continued. “First of all, we talked to Delaney. We know that you tried hard, more than once, to get him to be your advisor when you entered grad school, but he turned you down. That’s the main reason why you decided to be his TA…to maybe get some assistance in your grad work. Also, after we talked to him, we were able to get a warrant to search your place. Agents are there right now…and they have quite the list of things to look for, including a certain Italian tie that Delaney says has been missing from his collection for a while now.”

Lipton shuddered and leaned onto the table, his hands shaking and his mouth open in shock.

“If you have anything to say, I suggest that you say it now,” Booth said.

“Please tell us what happened,” Sweets nodded in agreement.

Lipton sat back up and seethed in silence for several minutes while clenching and unclenching his hands into fists before finally speaking.

“You have no idea how hard I worked to get where I am,” he said. “Top of my class and accepted into a prestigious grad program.  I knew all along that I wanted Delaney to be my advisor and did everything I could to get his attention, but he turned me down. Numerous times. The advisor that I ended up with is good, but he’s usually too busy for me, and he’s not at the top of this field like Delaney is. So even with all of the other work I have to do, I became Delaney’s TA in the hopes that he could spare some time for me to give me some guidance. But no matter what I did for him, he always acted like I was a pest that was annoying him.”

Lipton leaned toward Booth and Sweets, the shaking in his hands becoming more pronounced.

“That thing I had with Sara…it was nice, but it never was anything major,” he added. “Losing her…that wasn’t what drove me over the edge. No. It was the day that I walked into Delaney’s office and caught her and Delaney making out on his couch. They didn’t see me and I high-tailed it out of there…but I couldn’t get that scene out of my mind. That same day I went over Sara’s grades and realized that they had been improving ever since she started her private “sessions” with him. All the work that I had done and she gets Delaney’s attention just by sleeping with him?”

The TA then balled his hands into fists again and slammed them against the table.

“I thought for sure that when I buried Sara in his garden and planted all those copied papers in her file that it would lead the local cops straight to Delaney,” he growled. “But they were too stupid to figure it out. So I made sure to put the next slut that Delaney was seeing somewhere more public and obvious like the campus grounds. But I suppose I should have known better than to rely on campus security. It took you guys long enough to catch on.”

“But why kill all of these women?” Sweets asked. “Delaney was the source of your misery, not them. And you just admitted that your breakup with Sara was not that big of a deal.”

“Just because that wasn’t a big deal doesn’t mean that I should have to put up with these stupid girls using sex to get ahead,” Lipton roared. “Besides, killing is too good for Delaney. If I had killed him, what would have happened? He would have been a martyr and everyone would have eulogized him as some kind of tragic hero. But if he’s arrested for murder, he gets to live out the rest of his days in jail and in disgrace…and everyone would know exactly what kind of a person he really is.”

“Yeah, well it looks like to me like your plan isn’t going to work, pal,” Booth snarled at him. “You’re the one who’s going to jail, not him.” Lipton suddenly began to laugh.

“But don’t you see, Agent Booth?” he chortled. “Things are still working out for me. Now everyone knows about how Delaney has been sleeping with his students and in the back of their minds, they’ll always wonder if he could have played a role in these deaths, even if you arrest me. Do you actually think that he’ll have a job after this? Trust me, he’ll never be respected the way he is now ever again. And from where I sit, that counts as a win for me.”

* * *

 

Sweets sat in his office alone, trying to absorb the events he had just witnessed over an hour ago.

Booth had arrested Lipton as soon as the TA finished giving his confession and had gone off to his office to work on the resulting paperwork. The psychologist had thought about stopping by Booth’s office at some point to touch base with him some more, but had decided against it and did some additional work instead. He was now nearing the end of his day and was making plans to slip out of the Hoover Building and pick up some dinner for him and Daisy to share.

Sweets listlessly shuffled some papers about and turned his computer off. He thought again about the anger he had seen in Lipton and once again he found himself focusing on and understanding those darker emotions.

‘ _I spend more time immersing myself into the evil of human nature than I do experiencing any of its good sides,’_ he thought to himself. ‘ _Do I even know anymore which parts of it are just the investigation and which parts are things inside of me? Things I’m trying to ignore?’_

_‘And can I even separate the two of them anymore?’_

Sweets shivered and stood up from his chair. As he turned the lights off in his office, he tried to remind himself of the things that Daisy had said to him the night before.

And then as he left, he spent his time praying that she was right about him.


	16. Chapter 16

Booth clicked the “send” button on his keyboard and leaned back in his chair as he watched another report get sent to his supervisors.

He had finished all of the preliminary paperwork and planned on running by the lab in a while to pick Brennan up so that the two of them could finish with their reports at his place. He then began to make vague plans about what he could put together for dinner tonight and found himself smiling at how domestic they were becoming at times.

That smile faded as he looked back at the stack of files and papers that needed to be sorted through before this case could be laid to rest. While there was always a sense of satisfaction at the completion of a case and at seeing justice being served, once the work started to wind down, Booth sometimes having thoughts not unlike the ones expressed by Birlew: that this was just cleanup work that did not change the fact that someone was now dead.

‘ _And in this case, it was three someones,’_ Booth mused. ‘ _Three women who were beginning a new phase of their lives…All of those lives cut short because someone couldn’t handle his own failures and rage….and because someone else couldn’t keep his pants up.’_

Booth sighed and stretched his arms over his head. He knew that technically Delaney hadn’t killed these women and that the professor couldn’t be blamed for Lipton’s actions. But that didn’t stop him from feeling like Delaney should be accountable for hindering the investigation and for his callous attitude toward the victims.

‘ _He didn’t even really notice it when they went missing. He just took it for granted that they weren’t around anymore and never gave them more than a passing thought.’_

The agent figured that it was possible, if not more than likely, that things were as casual for these women as they were for Delaney, but a part of him refused to let go of the idea that there should be a connection between people who actually make love.

‘ _Anything else…is just crappy sex,’_ he told himself. _‘And considering how Delaney doesn’t seem capable of anything else….well that’s why he’ll probably always be alone.’_

Booth stood up and put his suit jacket on. He was about to leave his office when his cell phone buzzed. The agent flipped open his phone and found a text waiting for him with just two words.

_‘He’s here.’_

Booth stared at the text for a moment before turning off the lights and walking out of his office with purpose. After his talk with Hacker, he had asked about Larson around the office and had been able to get a short list of local hangouts that Larson frequented. Booth knew the owners of some of those places and had asked them to let him know when Larson stopped by again. The text he had just received was from a local bar only a few miles from the Hoover Building.

As he walked out to his car, he made one last brief phone call.

“Hey Bones, it’s me. I’m just letting you know that I might be late picking you up, so you might want to head over to my place by yourself…No nothing major. I just have an errand I need to take care of before I see you….”

* * *

 

The agent walked into the dimly lit bar, deftly dodging other patrons who were wandering about as he made his way toward Larson. The other agent was sitting at the end of the bar and as Booth approached, the bartender gave him a significant nod which Booth understood to be both an acknowledgment and an unspoken request: _don’t cause any trouble in here._ Booth returned the nod and continued on his path.

He sat down onto a barstool right next to Larson. Larson looked up from his drink and glared at him.

“Hey pal, there’s plenty of space further down,” he said. “How about you move and give me some room?”

“How about not?” Booth growled. “How about you pay your bill and then the two of us go outside and have a little chat? And I’ll be the one picking the subject: the Algente case.”

“Who are you?” Larson asked, scowling. “Another Internal Affairs rat?”

“No,” Booth said, pulling out his wallet. “Seeley Booth. I want to talk to you about how you worked this case with one of my people.”

Larson rolled his eyes and pulled out his wallet. He threw a few bills onto the bar and got to his feet.

“I sort of figured that I’d be running into you at some point,” Larson grimaced. “So let’s go and get this over with.”

* * *

 

Less than two minutes later, the two of them were standing in an alley next to the bar, facing each other.

“So let me guess,” Larson sneered. “This is about your pet shrink getting knocked around a little, right? What? Did he go running to you about it?”

“He hasn’t said a word about it,” Booth said coolly. “How about you tell me what happened, starting with why you requested his help in the first place?”

“I got this case and realized that I was going to need some people of my own to work with in order to solve it,” Larson said, leaning against the brick wall behind him. “I figured that I could get a couple of the techs to give me some leads and then I remembered hearing about you and that shrink of yours cracked that case with those guys that were killed in that old bakery. I knew that this killer had to be a real sicko, so I thought that a profiler could get inside his head and give me something more to work with.”

“And that’s all it was?” Booth asked. “You just gave him some case files, let him work up a profile and then consulted with him over it?”

“Well no,” Larson said, scratching his head. “There was a lot to go through and the kid said that he would go over anything that I needed him to, so I took him up on that. Sure, it made for a lot of work for the both of us, but we had a guy out there who was killing kids. He needed to be taken down ASAP.”

“And what did any of this have to do with accessing Doctor Sweets’ file at the Bureau?” Booth asked, his expression grim. “He wasn’t a suspect, so how did that help your investigation?”

“That? Ok, it probably wasn’t the best move, but it was no big deal,” Larson snorted. “He knew that we were under the gun, but he started whining about his practice and patients he said he needed to see instead of working on this case.”

“Which is his job,” Booth interrupted. “You do know, don’t you, that the Bureau assigned him this practice along with giving him investigative work?”

“Please,” Larson said, rolling his eyes again. “A kid like that sitting around and tell us agents how we should “feel” about the things we deal with in the field. He had no idea how it is for us out there. As far as the file goes, I was just looking for a way to light a fire under him. I had heard a rumor that he had personal experience with Child Services when he was a kid, so I thought that if I gave him a little reminder of the kinds of things some kids have had to go through, he’d get his priorities straight.”

“A reminder?” Booth said, his rage starting to stir. “What kind of reminder?” Larson put his hands up.

“Calm down,” he said. “I didn’t lay a finger on him. I just gave him a little nudge, let a little bit of what I know get dropped into the conversation and left it at that. He’s got nothing to worry about….But I will say that there is some pretty messed up stuff in there. I’m surprised that he was able to keep it together as a kid and get all those fancy degrees.”

“Why did you take him with you to Algente’s house?” Booth growled. “I don’t care what you told Hacker, you knew that there was a strong possibility that Algente was the murderer and that it could be dangerous. And yet, you took an unarmed civilian with you into a potentially hazardous situation.”

“You mean like what you do with your scientist girlfriend from the Jeffersonian?” Larson retorted. “Or like you do with that shrink? You take them into the field all the time. Tell me, are you always thinking about their safety when you do that or have you just gotten comfortable with having them around?”

Larson’s words hit Booth like a fist to the face. He thought about times Brennan had been shot at, kidnapped and threatened and times when Sweets had been in the middle of Taffet’s assassination and when Lucke reached over to grab him. All of these moments served as sobering reminders of the trouble each of them faced when working closely with him.

Booth only allowed that to phase him for a moment. Despite the risks they all encountered, the agent was confident that both Brennan and Sweets and all of the members of his team knew that he would do whatever it took to keep all of them safe and to shield them from anyone who would harm them.

He was also certain that he wouldn’t take one of them to meet up with a potentially armed and deadly suspect, and he continued to fume at the idea of Larson equating himself with him.

“Don’t get me wrong, the kid is smart,” Larson said. “Smart and tougher that he looks. He was trapped with that psycho Algente for over an hour, and when they got him out of there, he still had this poker face on, like nothing happened. But I guess I don’t understand what the allure is for you and why so many are clamoring to have him work with them.”

“That’s because you aren’t and you never will be anything more than a low-level agent begging to get noticed,” Booth said as he advanced on him menacingly.

“Hey, I don’t have to listen to this from….”

Booth cut Larson off by grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming him against the wall, his face only inches away from Larson’s.

“You’re going to listen to me because I am only going to say this once,” Booth said. “Assuming that you still have a job at the Bureau once this is all over, there is something you better do from now on: stay away. Stay away from me and from any of my people. You are not to interact with or even think about consulting with Doctor Sweets on anything from now on. And if find out that you breathed a word about anything you read in his file….you better hope that you get transferred again before I have a chance to have another ‘discussion’ with you. Do I make myself clear?”

Booth slammed Larson against the wall again for emphasis before finally letting him go. Larson shook himself and looked as if he would say something, but suddenly closed his mouth and slinked away. Booth watched him leave and waited until he was out of sight before walking away toward his car.

* * *

 

“Hey Bones, where are you?” Booth said as he walked into his apartment a short while later.

“I’m in the kitchen, Booth,” Brennan called out to him. “You seemed to be running late, so I went ahead and made us some chicken and pilaf for dinner.”

“Thanks Bones,” he said as he put his gun away into the secret compartment on his bookshelf. He then plopped down the pile of papers he was carrying down onto the coffee table next to the stack that Brennan had brought. The agent walked into the kitchen to find Brennan scooping out food onto a pair of plates, and he reached over to wrap his arms around her waist from behind, kissing her neck as he did so.

“Stop it,” she protested with a smile. “I might spill the food onto the floor if you keep throwing my center of gravity off.

Booth laughed and squeezed her one last time before letting her go and helping her set the table. Soon they sat down to eat and then they chatted about the day and finishing up the case.

“So your plan of having Sweets portray the idiot to get Lipton to make a mistake worked,” Brennan said.

“Play the fool, Bones,” Booth said. “And yeah, it worked out great. Sweets…he really came through in this case.”

“How is he doing now?” she asked, noting Booth’s sudden somber tone.

“I don’t know,” Booth replied in-between bites of chicken. “I think he’s relieved that this case is over and that we got the guy. But he left the office before I could talk to him. I guess he just wants some space for now.”

Brennan nodded and the two of them went back to eating their meal in silence. Booth soon noticed the slow thoughtful way that the anthropologist was consuming her food and sat his fork down onto the plate.

“What is it, Bones?” he asked. “I know something is bothering you.”

“I was contemplating something that Mr. Vaziri said to me,” she answered. “Booth, do you think that the victims…that part of the reason that they were murdered was because they were separated from their close friends and families?”

“I guess I hadn’t thought much about it,” Booth replied. “But I suppose that could have been an element of it, sure. Family keeps you safe and looks out for you. And perhaps these girls would have stayed away from Delaney and by extension Lipton, if they had had people who cared about them making sure that they didn’t make the mistake of getting involved with either of them.”

“Mr. Vaziri said that when we are alone, that when we isolate ourselves, that that is when evil gains a foothold,” Brennan said. “And then it has a chance to consume us.”

Booth was startled by this. He knew that Brennan usually did not take the things that Arastoo said to heart.

“Bones, what is this about?”

“Sweets,” she said. “He keeps being alone and we keep giving him space, and look at what happened. He was injured during what should have been a routine investigation. And none of us knew about it or know for sure now if he is getting better beyond the physical aspects. What if something happens to him again? I know that I shouldn’t dwell on possibilities, but when I think about this case, what has happened recently and what Mr. Vaziri said, I…I can’t stop thinking about…” Booth placed a hand over one of hers.

“Don’t worry,” he soothed. “You’re right. The time for space is over. I’ll talk to him and get to the bottom of this whole thing. And then he’ll come out of it over time, you’ll see.” Brennan nodded and swiped at her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I do not know why I am becoming so emotional about this. I suppose it could be hormonal. I hope that it will not affect me too often during my pregnancy.”

“It’s ok, Bones,” Booth grinned at her. “And hey, if it makes you feel better, I don’t think that all of this can just be chalked up to hormones.”

 


	17. Chapter 17

Sweets sat at a table in the Royal Diner, wondering why he had ordered a sandwich if he had no intention of finishing it.

It was Friday night and after a grueling marathon of work, he had finished his assignments and was now free for the entire weekend. As he was leaving the Hoover Building, he had called Daisy to see if she would be up for going out for dinner, but to his dismay, the intern had other plans. She wouldn’t be available until tomorrow evening and Sweets had to be satisfied with spending the rest of the weekend with her then. After that, he drove back to his apartment and changed into a comfortable black sweater and jeans, intent on trying to relax.

After spending an hour staring at the walls, Sweets decided that this wasn’t going to work, and he left his apartment to wander around the streets of DC for a while. A few minutes into his stroll he was hit with the impulse to get something to eat and ended up taking a taxi over to the Royal Diner.

All of this lead to where he was now, sitting alone at his table contemplating half of a sandwich that was sitting on his plate. When he had first gotten his food, he had devoured it, but he then lost his appetite as fast as he had acquired it, and he was questioning his original mission to find something to do outside of his apartment.

His questioning was soon interrupted by the sight of Booth walking over to his table. The agent stopped and stood in front of him.

“Are you finished eating?” Booth asked.

“I can be,” Sweets shrugged.

“Did you drive here?” Booth replied.

“No, I took a cab,” the psychologist answered. “Why?”

“We need to talk,” Booth said, pulling out his wallet and grabbing the check. “So finish your meal while I pay your bill.”

* * *

 

The two of them left the restaurant and walked in silence over to where Booth had parked his SUV. They got in and Booth drove for a short while before pulling into an empty parking lot. He then parked and turned the car off before looking over at Sweets.

“I need you to be straight with me,” he said. “I know about the Algente case. I know about Larson and how he went too far, and I know about how you got hurt. At least, I know the basics of all of this. Now, I need to hear it from you. What exactly happened?”

Sweets scowled and looked down into his lap. At first Booth worried that Sweets was going to be angry with him, but soon the psychologist’s frown drifted away and was replaced with a more pensive look. Sweets twisted his fingers about and Booth leaned back in his seat and waited for him to gather his thoughts.

“Agent Larson came to see me the same day he was assigned that case,” Sweets finally said, his head still down. “Apparently he had done some homicide work before, but nothing like this. He asked for my help, and after going over the basics of the case, I said that I would do all that I could. I mean, I saw the crime scene photos and glanced at the reports. I knew that we were dealing with a very disturbed, very dangerous person who needed to be caught right away.”

Sweets’ hands stopped fidgeting and his palms flattened against his knees.

“It started out fine for about a day or so,” the therapist continued. “I worked up a profile¸ went over it with him, and offered to screen any suspects or assist in any interrogations that he might need me for. It was after that that it started.”

Booth finally looked back toward him and noticed that Sweets was now gripping his knees tightly.

“After that, Larson brought in stack after stack of files on people to comb through,” Sweets said. “He got files on anyone and everyone that he could that was even remotely related to the case. I told him that some of these people were a waste of time due to them being too old, too infirm or unable to acquire the kind of access to the victims needed to pull off these crimes. But none of that mattered to Larson. He wanted complete psychological reports on every person he had a file for. At first, I focused on prioritizing the people who had the most potential to be a viable suspect and skimped on the rest, but he was not happy with that. When he realized what I was doing…that was the first time he asked me how much I remember about being in the foster system.”

Booth ground his jaw, but remained silent. He tried to make sure to focus on the things that Sweets was telling him, but in the back of his mind, he kept wishing that he had he hadn’t gone so easy on Larson.

“It just came from nowhere,” Sweets said. “He had said it as casually as someone else might ask a person if they wanted a cup of coffee. I tried to get to the bottom of how he knew about that, but he was smugly evasive. It was then that I figured that he had somehow gotten access to my file with the Bureau.”

“Did you report him?” Booth asked.

“I thought about it,” Sweets replied. “But I then realized that I didn’t have any proof, just suspicions drawn from my instincts. It would be my word against his. And besides…I guess I just didn’t want to turn it into a big ordeal because, well, there was the chance that I was wrong. That and I didn’t um…I didn’t want to be known as the type who runs to the boss because of a personal problem with a co-worker. I just wanted to be able to handle on my own. I know that that probably seems pretty adolescent now. Like I was trying to stand up to the playground bully, but….”

“Sweets, there’s nothing juvenile about wanted to stand on your own two feet against people who try to push you around,” Booth said. “You shouldn’t be ashamed for wanting to stand up for yourself.”

“I suppose not,” Sweets said, looking back down. “But to be honest, another reason I didn’t want to say anything is because I was scared that the stuff in my file would be spread all over the office.” The psychologist took a deep breath, his chest puffing out, and let it go before continuing.

“Larson continued to mention things from my childhood here and there and frequently he would drop by my office to check up on me,” he said. “The sad thing is that he didn’t really need to do that. I had been spending so much time with this case, I felt the need to catch this guy too. Eventually though, time spent on this one case started to interfere with my ability to maintain my practice. I told him that I would have to pull back a little. The next day he took me to a fresh crime scene.”

Booth could hear his throat trying to work down a swallow, the noise hard and hesitant. He started to think that Sweets was blinking a little too much, but said nothing.

“You know, I’ve been to crime scenes before,” the psychologist said. “And I’ve seen the bodies that Doctor Brennan and Doctor Saroyan have had to work with. It hasn’t always been easy, but I think I’ve learned to deal with it. But that day…Larson didn’t just want me there to gather additional information for the case. He wanted to motivate me. He insisted that I take in every angle of the body in front of me, and he continued to drop comments alluding to my own childhood. I tried to ignore him, but then….”

Sweets stopped and ran his hands down his face, letting them plop back down into his lap afterwards. Fragments of light from the street lamps glimmered in his too-bright eyes.

“I don’t know. It was as if I saw myself there on the ground,” he said quietly. “I’ve read extensively on child abuse, and I know the statistics. I know how easy it would have been for me to….I sort of lost it for a minute there. Fortunately, Larson didn’t notice.”

“Sweets, that day at the university,” Booth interrupted. “When we found Carol Lessinger’s body.”’

“Yeah,” Sweets nodded. “I guess a part of me was still in that hypersensitive mode. Seeing that body like that…I mean, wow, it was gross, but it got into my head too.” Booth nodded and waited for Sweets to regain his composure and continue.

“During our investigation, there was one name that I just could let go of,” Sweets said. “Darren Algente. He had a connection to all of the victims. He fit the profile that I had constructed and there was some circumstantial evidence linking him to the latest victim. Larson and I soon focused on him and it culminated with Larson wanting me to come with him to visit Algente at his home. He said that he wanted me to try to ‘read’ Algente so that we could maybe figure out some way to trap him.”

“Did Larson go over any kind of contingency plan with you in case anything went wrong?” Booth asked.

“No,” Sweets said, shaking his head. “He uh, he acted like he had everything under control. I was so anxious to make real progress on this case, I chose to believe him. Unfortunately, I had underestimated how unstable Algente could be by this point, and Larson underestimated how dangerous he was. Algente answered his door brandishing a huge revolver. There was no time to react. He shot at Larson and then pointed the gun at my head.”

Sweets went back to gripping his knees, and Booth detected a tremor making its way into the therapist’s voice.

“Larson was able to make it back to the car,” he added. “I figured that he was going to call for backup. Algente led me into the house and tossed a pair of handcuffs at me. He made me cuff my wrists around a railing near the foot of the stairs. Then he kept rambling about people finding him and about things he still needed to do. I tried talking to him, but he just kicked me in the ribs a couple times.”

Sweets bowed his head even more, his breaths shallow.

“He kept pointing that gun at me,” he said. “Telling me that he was going to kill me and then telling me about how he had killed each of his victims. In detail. What he saw, what he felt, how…good it felt to him. Then he started to stare at me.”

Booth felt his breath catch. Ever since he had heard that Algente had been the one to hurt Sweets, he had suspected that the experience had been traumatic for the psychologist. But now he was scared that it had been even more horrifying that he had originally thought.

“He…he crouched down beside me and began running his hands through my hair, along my face,” Sweets mumbled. “He kept saying that I could be…his type.”

“Sweets,” Booth breathed, dreading the answer to his question. “Did he…did he…?”

“No,” Sweets replied. “When I thought that his hands might start to wander, I spit in his face, figuring that it would distract him. And it worked. He punched me in the eye and then went back to pacing around the room and ranting about the activity outside. Eventually though…it’s as if he had a complete mental breakdown. He was sure that he wasn’t going to get out of this situation alive and thus, he wanted to have some “fun” before he died. It was then that he said that he wanted to play a game with me.”

Sweets shuddered, and Booth tentatively reached over and patted his shoulder. He was concerned at how the psychologist might respond to the gesture, but was relieved when Sweets seemed to lean into the touch.

“He kept asking me questions and saying that he wanted to find out how brave I am,” Sweets said. “He aimed his gun at me and said that if I cried out, he would shoot me. Then he started kicking me in the ribs again. Multiple times. It was hard, but I…I was able to swallow down the pain and keep quiet. Then he started on my wrist, stomping at it with the heel of his boot. Looking back on it now, I don’t know how I was able to keep quiet, but I did. Eventually he got frustrated and flew into a rage, screaming and throwing things around the room.”

Booth reached back over and firmly, but gently placed his hand back on Sweets’ shoulder. He found himself wishing that he had been there to take out Algente himself, but found solace in the fact that he was dead and Sweets was alive.

“He then sat down beside him and told me that he knew that he was going to die that day and that he had no regrets,” the psychologist said. “Then he said that he was going to give me a choice. I could cooperate and let him have some “fun” with me, and he would let me live. Or I could resist and he could put a bullet into my head then and there. I…when he said that , I kept thinking about what happened to Taffet, the way her head….when Broadsky shot her…And I froze. Every part of me was screaming to not let him touch me, but I just couldn’t move or speak. Fortunately, that was the moment when the SWAT team stormed the house. Seconds later, Algente was dead, just like he said he would be.”

Sweets’ eyes shined with unshed tears, and his voice grew watery.

“If SWAT hadn’t come in when they did,” he murmured. “I would have let him…would have let him…you know. And I can’t stop thinking about that. How I would have let him do that to me without even….”

“Listen to me, Sweets,” Booth insisted, squeezing the psychologist’s shoulder so that he would look at him. “You were just doing what you needed to do in order to survive. That’s all. It doesn’t mean anything more than that, all right?”

“I guess,” Sweets said, looking away. “I mean, I know. I know that. I should know that. It’s part of my job to know that. It’s just….I guess I wanted to just shut this all away and put it all behind me. But I suppose I should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy.”

Sweets scrubbed his eyes and sniffed hard while looking out the passenger’s side window for several moments. Eventually he took a couple of more deep breaths and looked up at the windshield.

“I know that I’ve been kind of…distant lately,” he said. “I just…I didn’t know if I could talk about all this and I knew that at least one of you would ask about it. But…I am trying to work through this now, and I appreciate you letting me talk about it.” The psychologist looked over at him with a shadow of a smile.

“Thank you, Agent Booth,” he said. “And hey, you could just drop me off and my apartment and I’ll….”

“Wait a minute, is Daisy waiting for you there?” Booth asked.

“No,” Sweets nearly whispered. “She’s going to be gone until tomorrow evening. Some research she needs to do out of town.”

“Then that’s not how it’s going to go,” Booth frowned. “You’re not telling me something like this, reliving something like this and then just having me drop you off at your place so you can sit there by yourself. I’ll run you by there so you can pick up some things and then you’re going with me over to Bones’ place until Daisy gets back.”

“Booth, I’ll be ok, really,” Sweets insisted. “I’m not going to do anything rash or….”

“That isn’t the point,” Booth said. “This isn’t just about you working through this. I know that you’ll get through this. We all do. And I know that you know that if an agent of the Bureau went through an ordeal like the one you did, they’d be sending them to guys like you. And you know why they do that too.”

“To ensure their safety, assess their condition and make sure that they don’t work through it alone,” Sweets replied.

“Right,” Booth nodded. “So do us a favor and put yourself into our hands for a while.”

Sweets didn’t respond right away and Booth thought for sure that the psychologist would continue to refuse his invitation. Then Sweets looked over at him, that same ghost of a smile on his face.

“Ok,” he said quietly. “I think….I guess maybe I should try to relax. For a little while.”

Booth grinned at him and patted his shoulder again before turning the ignition on.

“All right then, that’s settled,” he said. “Oh and we need to stop by the store on the way over there. I was thinking about making dinner tonight and we’re going to need a couple things. Oh and this time, I’m picking the movie that we watch. I’m not letting Bones talk me into any more documentaries or you suggest anymore geek-fest films. You got that?”

Sweets smiled a little more and started to make his argument for sci-fi films while the two of them pulled out of the parking lot and drove away.


	18. Chapter 18

The next three weeks did not turn out to be easy ones, but there was improvement.

* * *

 

After leaving the parking lot with Booth, Sweets ended up running some errands with the agent, going back to his apartment to meet with Brennan, and helping him prepare dinner for the three of them. Once their meal was finished, they had settled into the front room to watch a cheesy action movie, but ended up passing the time in conversation instead. During the entire evening and up until all of them went to bed, the atmosphere and had been a relaxed, light-hearted one.

As a result, it had been a shock to all of them when Sweets cried out while in the grip of a nightmare in the middle of the night.

It hadn’t been a loud sound, but it had been enough to wake both Booth and Brennan and to send them over to the guest room where they found Sweets sitting up in bed, his head in his hands. Upon seeing them walk into the room, the psychologist turned beet red.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the bed sheets. “I didn’t mean to…I guess I still have a lot on my mind. I….” Sweets gripped the blankets covering him and bowed his head even more as he tried to rein in his emotions.

Booth and Brennan looked at each other for a moment. Not long before that, Booth had told Brennan the basics of what had happened to Sweets in the privacy of their bedroom so that the psychologist would not have to repeat his story to her. Neither of them said it out loud, but both of them were not that surprised that Sweets was having nightmares given what they had learned about what had happened.

“Come on, Sweets,” Booth said, reaching over to pat the therapist’s shoulder. “Bones said something about a midnight snack….”

“Actually, eating past a certain hour of the day can…..” Brennan started.

“ _And_ I think we could all use a chance to unwind for a while longer,” Booth continued, turning toward her with a meaningful look in his eye. Brennan crinkled her forehead for a moment before the subtext became clear to her.

“Right,” she said nodding her head and smiling. “We could have sandwiches, if you would like.”

The three of them ended up staying awake and talking for well into the night and sleeping in late the next day.

* * *

 

Sweets gave Booth permission to tell Cam, Angela and Hodgins what had happened to him during that late-night that conversation, but never spoke about it directly to any of them. He did, however, repeat his story to Daisy once she got back in town that weekend.

Daisy had listened quietly while the psychologist told her what happened and other than an embrace and a series of concerned expressions, she did not appear to have much of a reaction. But soon, Sweets noticed things that hinted at just how affected Daisy was.

Over the next two weeks, she called and texted him more frequently, and on nights that she stayed at his apartment, she often held him close to her, as if she was reluctant to let him go. When they went out together, she often stayed close to his side and seemed to keep watch over him.

When Sweets finally confronted her over the subtle changes he had noticed, she shocked him by starting to cry.

“I’m sorry. I know that Doctor Brennan would say that I am not being logical or rational,” she sniffled. “But I think about what happened to you and what could have happened and…I’m scared. Scared that something will happen to you and you won’t be around anymore. And then I get angry at the man who did that to you, and then I am scared again. I know that my proximity to you does not affect the chances of negative events happening or change the past in any way, but I…I still can’t stop myself.”

Sweets had been stunned. He had expected Daisy to feel saddened at what had happened to him, but he did not expect it to be coupled with fear and apprehension about what could happen to him in the future. A part of him felt ashamed that the people closest to him often felt the need to protect him and the desire to be able to better protect himself stirred within him.

For the moment though, he decided that it would be better to focus on the love behind Daisy’s emotions and actions.

“I’m the one who should be saying sorry, Daisy,” he said as he put his arms around her. “I kept thinking about how all of this affected me and didn’t think about how it could affect you. And to make it worse, I was shutting you out….I am so sorry.”

“Lance…do you think we should move in together?” Daisy said, pulling him closer.

Sweets opened his mouth to speak, but paused before any sound could come out. There had been times over these last few months when he thought about taking that step with her, but he had always put that question aside. He knew that it meant more than just Daisy or him moving some possessions into a living space: it was symbolic of a commitment and a step toward making their current arrangement more permanent. He knew that Daisy would see it that way too although it would be viewed through the lens of anthropology and societal norms. Even though he was immensely grateful for her support and happy in his relationship with her, Sweets still felt deeply uncertain.

“We’ll talk about it,” Sweets assured her. The two of them ended up being distracted by more intimate pursuits and the topic did not come up again for the rest of the night.

* * *

 

Changes were also felt by the rest of the team and seen at work, and ranged from being more subtle to impossible to ignore.

* * *

 

Sweets met with his supervisor, Agent Warner, and the two of them agreed that the psychologist should lessen his work load for a while so he could have a chance to recover from his ordeal. With little in the way of hesitation, Sweets chose to focus most of his attention on his practice and cut back on his availability for profiling and investigative assignments.

Warner did strongly suggest that Sweets see a therapist as well, but the psychologist managed to convince Warner to not set up anything official. Instead, Sweets ended up going to Wyatt for some counseling over light lunches at his restaurant. The chef mostly listened to Sweets during the first two sessions before finally offering his own thoughts.

“I do believe that you are making the right decision to turn your energies toward your patients at this time,” Wyatt told him. “It’s paramount that you maintain a proper balance.”

“Balance?” Sweets replied. “Do you think I was neglecting my practice too much for the sake of my investigative work?”

“No no,” Wyatt assured him. “The balance I am referring to is the one inside of you. The deeper nature, if you will. When plumbing the depths of human depravity, it is important to remain sure of one’s footing.” Wyatt then leaned toward Sweets, his gaze firmly centered at the psychologist’s eyes.

“You are not Algente or Lipton, no matter how well you might understand them,” he said. “Knowledge does not equate being. It is crucial for you to remember that while you continue to gaze into these evil, twisted souls and find yourself peering into your own dark mirror. Remind yourself of what separates you from them: the light that continues to shine not only within you but from those who you nurture both in your practice and within the family you have gathered around you.”

* * *

 

When Sweets told the others that he was taking time away from investigative and field work, all of them agreed that it was best that he rest for a while after all that had happened. It also turned out to not much of an inconvenience since there continued to be a lull in the number of homicide cases that required the Jeffersonian’s attention. Everyone started to fall back into their old routines again.

This time, however, it was not without some trepidation and vigilance.

Both of these were present one afternoon, three weeks after wrapping up the triple homicide they had all worked on. Booth and Brennan were sharing lunch at the Royal Diner, and their meal was not a quiet one, although that was mainly due to Booth going over recent events since Brennan said little as she ate.

“So Larson is gone,” the agent told her. “Apparently, Hacker was contemplating sending him back to LA, but ended up making his suspension more permanent instead.”

“So he didn’t actually fire him?” Brennan asked.

“Nah, that’s not Hacker’s style,” Booth said in between bites of his fish sandwich. “He just made it so that Larson had little choice but to quit. That way no one could say that Larson wasn’t given a fair shake or that firing him was political in any way…even though that’s exactly how it was below the surface.”

“While I do not see the need for the subterfuge, I do think that it is probably for the best,” Brennan said. “I do not think he was very good at his work. He should find something more suited to his abilities.”

“Yeah, like part-time security guard,” Booth scoffed. “And speaking of career changes, Delaney is out too. When I talked to the staff recently for a follow up, they said that he was taking an early retirement and is only doing consulting work for them so that he can concentrate more on writing his books. So it looks like Lipton got what he wanted after all.”

“That’s terrible,” the anthropologist frowned. Booth blinked in surprise.

“Are you saying that you wanted Delaney to keep his job?” he asked. “After everything he did?”

“No, of course not,” Brennan answered. “I’m just…I’m uncomfortable with the idea that Lipton might feel justified in  killing those women since his actions managed to produce the results that he wanted. He may be in jail, but he still gets to have the satisfaction that his plan to ruin Delaney worked.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean, Bones,” Booth said. “And you’re right; it’s lousy that he gets to feel that way. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s in jail and those women’s families get to have some justice. No matter what he thinks, Lipton can’t change any of that.”

“I suppose that is true,” Brennan said. Booth nodded in response and the two of them ate in silence for a few moments.

“Booth, do you think that Sweets is doing better now?” Brennan suddenly asked. “He seems to be committed to spending most of his time with his practice rather than work on criminal cases.”

“I don’t think you need to worry too much about that,” Booth replied. “More time with his practice is probably what Sweets needs right now. Eventually, when he’s ready, I am sure that he’ll go back to investigative work and will be working with us again. Just give him time.”

“I talked with Angela yesterday,” Brennan said. “She and Hodgins had taken Sweets with them for one of their lunches in the park with Michael. She said that Sweets seemed so happy to spend time with them….but she also said that he seemed distant in some way, despite the fact that physically, he was near them the entire time.”

“And that’s probably how it’s going to be for a while,” Booth said. “You know Sweets. That’s just the way he is. He has to work through what happened to him in his own way and there is no rushing it.”

“I hope that you are correct,” Brennan said. Booth nodded at her again and went back to eating his sandwich. Brennan found herself brushing a hand along her abdomen. Having a child of her own gave her the inescapable sense of building a family of her own. A family with Booth. But even as she focused on the idea of that, she was reminded of the tribe, the family that she currently had. The one that she and Booth had already built around themselves. Logically, she could not fathom how simply adding an infant to her familial circle could change her feelings and even strengthen her commitment to all of them, but she knew that both of these things were true.

Brennan took a deep breath and went back to focusing on her soup. For years, she had been convinced that feelings and relationships were ephemeral.  Now, however, she was filled with sense of permanence and she knew that she would fight to hold onto the family that she had, including the baby growing inside her. She wanted Booth to be right about Sweets and the psychologist’s eventual return to their work unit because she did not want to let go of him or the ties that they shared.

Booth, however, found himself unable to shake the worry that he felt. Family was not a foreign, distant concept to him by any stretch and the idea of co-workers becoming like family was not a new one. Despite the tumultuous history he had as a child, he had always ended up with family. Whether it was bleak, angry nights spent consoling Jared after one of their father’s drunken rages or joyous afternoons spent with his grandfather playing dominoes, Booth had always experienced the tie of family. Then as he got older and played sports and served in the Army, he discovered the close bonds that can form between teammates and fellow soldiers while working and playing together.

In spite of all this, however, Booth had often felt that something was missing. He had maintained his connection with his grandfather, but many of his other familial relationships were distant. While he eventually grew away from the people who he played sports with, Booth did try to hold onto his friendships that he had formed in the military. But far too often, these friendships ended in tragedy with his fellow soldiers either sacrificing their lives on the battlefield or never truly being able to walk away from the horrors of war with their souls intact.

Booth bit back a sigh as he picked at his French fries. After Parker was born, and Rebecca had left him, a part of him did not really want to expand his inner circle anymore. Meeting Brennan, getting to know the others at the lab, having Sweets come into their lives…all of that had challenged that desire to remain closed from most of the world. Booth ended up finding a different, but stronger familial place with them. His new relationship with the woman he considered his partner in every sense and the fact that the two of them were having a baby gave all of this an even greater sense of completion. Thus, the agent found a contentment that he hadn’t even realized he had been missing.

Still, that contentment was accompanied by the all too tangible fear that continued to persist inside him. The loss of anyone from this tight-knit would leave a gaping wound that might not heal for the rest of his life. That thought frightened Booth and pushed him toward a vigilance that would not waver, no matter how happy he was at the current state of affairs.

Booth felt a knot in his throat as he swallowed his latest French fry. This time, they had almost lost Sweets. The psychologist had come very close to being killed, and Booth could not stop thinking about how he would not have been able to stop it from happening. The agent had had another long discussion with Hacker earlier that week, asking that, when not working with him, Sweets only be sent into the field with trusted agents of the Bureau. Booth understood that he could not tell Sweets how to do his job, but he was determined to do what he could to ensure the therapist’s safety.

Movement outside caught Booth’s eye and he looked over at the window to see Cam, Angela, Hodgins, and Sweets waving at them as they approached the restaurant. The group then walked in and made their way over to where he and Brennan were sitting, smiles plastered on all of their faces.

“Hey, mind if we join you guys?” Hodgins asked. Booth and Brennan scanned each face, both of them pausing when they got to Sweets. They each noted the way that the psychologist’s eyes were lit up with amusement and the ease with which he grinned at them, and both of them felt warmth in their hearts.

“Sure,” Booth said as he scooted his chair over to make room. More chairs, plates and even a table were moved around in order to accommodate all of them sitting together. It was a tight fit, but no one seemed to care.

The only thing that seemed to matter was the fact that they were together.


End file.
